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L.A. wants to build on win at Colorado

Apr 20, 2012 - 8:00 PM Commerce City, CO (Sports Network) - Los Angeles stars Landon Donovan, Juninho and David Beckham all broke out of early-season slumps last weekend, and it was not surprising the Galaxy won as a result.

Donovan, Juninho, and Beckham each scored their first goals of the season in an important 3-1 win over the Portland Timbers, a match that lifted the Galaxy off the bottom of the Western Conference.

"It's important," Donovan said, "because you can't sit on the bottom for too long, so it was good to get ourselves out of the cellar."

Now, L.A. (2-3-0) has to produce a similar performance against Saturday against the Colorado Rapids (3-3-0) as Donovan added "we've got to keep carrying it to the coming weeks."

Los Angeles visits Dick's Sporting Goods Park already nine points behind early leader Real Salt Lake, although its expected rival for the title in the Western Conference has played two more matches.

Donovan admitted that building on the win was even more important and that will start with a result against Colorado.

"We played better last week," Donovan said, "(it) was ... our best performance all around of the season."

But "it's not good enough to have a couple better games then have a bad game," Donovan added. "We have to be consistently better."

Although the Galaxy lost to the New England Revolution, their other two losses were against Sporting Kansas City and Real - the squads with the most points in Major League Soccer to date.

Beckham, who ended the win over Portland with a brilliant long-range goal, said after the victory it was important to end the early two-game losing streak, but more important was the way the team played.

"It's a big win obviously because of the run that we've been on and the way we've been playing," Beckham said. "Overall, our performance was a 100 percent better than it's been all season. We played as a team, we attacked and defended as a team and we deserved to win."

Colorado opened the season with win in three of its first four matches, but it has dropped its three tough matches to date against Red Bull New York, Real and Seattle Sounders FC by combined scores of 7-1.

The Rapids lost to Real two weeks ago and Seattle last week, both on the road. At least at home, Colorado has won its first two matches, and could take a huge step forward with a result against the Galaxy this week.

"Going forward we need to beat LA. I saw a lot of intensity and courage in the first half. We need to be more dangerous and create options to score," Colorado defender Drew moor said.

"At the end of the day that's going to give you points."