Edson Buddle

The Galaxy lost the last Major Soccer League match Edson Buddle played in. That was 17 months ago in the MLS playoffs at the Home Depot Center. And heading into the first match of a new season Saturday, the Galaxy hadn't lost at home since. In fact, the team has hardly lost at all, cruising to its first MLS title in six seasons last year while Buddle toiled in relative anonymity for a second-division club in Germany. Yet if Buddle could do it all over again, he would. "Yeah, I've thought about it," says Buddle, a fan favorite when he led the Galaxy in scoring in 2010.

When: 7:30. Where: Home Depot Center. On the air: TV: TWC SportsNet, TWC Deportes; Radio: 1150, 1220. Records: Galaxy 1-0-1; Rapids 0-2-1. Record vs. Rapids (2012): 2-0-1. Update: Galaxy forward Robbie Keane (Ireland) and defender Omar Gonzalez (USA) will be absent after being called up to their national teams for World Cup qualifiers. Mike Magee could get the start for Keane, with defenders Leonardo or Sean Franklin as options for Gonzalez.

This Buddle's for you, Galaxy fans. Edson Buddle, Major League Soccer's top scorer this season, banged in two more goals on Saturday night and, in the process, made a bit of league history With 15 minutes left in the game against Real Salt Lake at the Home Depot Center, Brazilian midfielder Juninho took a pass from teammate Chris Birchall and in turn fed the ball to Buddle, who had made some space for himself between two defenders....

Galaxy defenders Omar Gonzalez and A.J. De La Garza were among 25 players called into this week's training camp for the U.S. soccer team, but Galaxy captain Landon Donovan was not on the list, making it unlikely the national team's all-time leading scorer will play in the opening match of the final round of World Cup qualifying next month in Honduras. Also invited to camp at the Home Depot Center in Carson was Chivas USA striker Juan Agudelo and former Galaxy forward Edson Buddle, who was traded to the Colorado Rapids last month.

It was supposed to be the sendoff game for Galaxy forwards Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle before they leave to join the U.S. team as it prepares for the World Cup. Posters were handed out. Handmade signs decorated the stadium. One said: "Buddle Scores Again," with the letters U, S and A picked out in red. But Buddle didn't score. Neither did Donovan. Neither did the Galaxy. Toronto FC came into Saturday night's Major League Soccer game at the Home Depot Center unimpressed by the fact that Buddle leads the league in goals and that Donovan leads it in assists.

Edson Buddle was on something of a sabbatical with the German bundesliga last spring so he missed the Galaxy's stumbling start, one in which Coach Bruce Arena's team won only two of its first six games. But he knows how the season ended: with four consecutive victories and a Major League Soccer title. As a result Buddle, a high-scoring striker, and the Galaxy are far from panicking after winning only once in four tries this season. "Bruce said this year we started out better for some reason –possession-wise — than last year.

By the time the Galaxy's charter flight from Seattle was scheduled to touch down in Los Angeles early Monday, much of what had happened hours earlier likely would be forgotten. Blame that on the convoluted rules governing the MLS playoffs, which gave the Galaxy little reward for its 1-0 win over the Sounders in the opening match of the Western Conference semifinals Sunday night. Or credit the team's veteran leadership, which has kept the Galaxy focused on the ultimate prize, the MLS Cup, while refusing to celebrate the incremental steps it will take to get it there.

Edson Buddle scored his 13th goal of the year, and the Los Angeles Galaxy defeated the New York Red Bulls, 1-0, on Saturday at Red Bull Arena in Major League Soccer. "I liked this game," New York coach Hans Backe said. "It was probably one of the most intense games for us this season. One turnover cost us a goal, but I'm still rather happy with our performance. We didn't overplay possession, and we played rather relaxed, and still created a number of chances. Once again, it's a good sign for us that we can compete and control possession against a team like the Galaxy.

The return of Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle from the World Cup was enough of a reason for the Galaxy's announced sellout crowd of 27,000 to cheer. The duo earned that applause early in a 3-1 win over Seattle on Sunday at the Home Depot Center. Buddle connected with Donovan's corner kick in the 19th minute to head it in for the team's first goal. Immediately following the goal, Buddle ran to the sideline and embraced his World Cup teammate. "There was a lot of energy and emotion at the beginning of the game with the big crowd," Donovan said.

"Change is good," former Galaxy player and general manager Alexi Lalas once proclaimed, and change is most definitely headed in the Galaxy's direction. On Monday, in two unrelated moves, Edson Buddle, the hotshot Galaxy striker from last season, and Cobi Jones, the face of the Major League Soccer team since its 1996 formation, both said their farewells. Buddle, 29, left because he was a free agent coming off the best season in his career and realized it was now or never if he wanted to play in Europe.

The Galaxy lost a veteran forward Friday when it traded Edson Buddle to the Colorado Rapids. But it also gained a veteran midfielder and a solid goalkeeper, selecting Houston's Colin Clark and Columbus' Will Hesmer with its first two picks in Major League Soccer's reentry draft. Under the rules of the reentry draft teams are allowed to select players who are out-of-contract or have had their options declined by their current teams. Teams pick in reverse order of their finish in the most recent season.

The Detroit Tigers have made another major move to help their quest to win a World Series for the first time since 1984. Right-handed pitcher Anibal Sanchez agreed to an $80-million, five-year contract with the Tigers, a person familiar with the deal told the Associated Press on Friday. The person, speaking on condition of anonymity because the agreement hadn't been finalized, said Sanchez is scheduled for a physical Monday. Sanchez was a part of Detroit's four-man rotation that led the franchise to the World Series this year.

The Galaxy celebrated Saturday's MLS Cup victory deep into Sunday morning. But when Coach Bruce Arena and Tim Leiweke, the team's chief executive, awoke later that day, the countless champagne toasts weren't the only things that had their heads spinning. Because after winning consecutive league titles with David Beckham and Landon Donovan, the team must now figure out a way to win without one and possibly both players. "There's little doubt in my mind that we're going to have some transition here," said Leiweke, president of AEG, the global sports and entertainment company that owns the Galaxy.

How they match up Both teams followed difficult paths to get here. The Galaxy was in last place in the Western Conference in June but lost just four times in its final 21 regular-season games to earn a wild-card berth. Then the team came from behind to beat Vancouver and San Jose in the first two rounds of the playoffs. Houston, meanwhile, earned the final Eastern Conference wild-card spot by losing just once in the last five weeks of the season. The Dynamo then upset Chicago, Sporting Kansas City and D.C. United to reach the title game for the second straight year.

SEATTLE -- Galaxy captain Landon Donovan, who has been plagued by injury all season, did not dress for the Western Conference final against the Seattle Sounders on a wet and chilly Sunday night at CenturyLink Field. The scenario the Galaxy faces -- it takes a three-goal lead into the second of two matches in a Major League Soccer playoff series that will be decided on total scores -- might have had something to do with that decision. But the weather conditions and the punishing nature of Seattle's artificial turf might also be a factor.

SEATTLE - It's unlikely anyone on the Galaxy roster will go into Sunday's Major League Soccer playoff game under more pressure than goalkeeper Josh Saunders. That's because, for the first time this season, the Galaxy will take the field not with a lead to earn but with one to protect. The Western Conference final is a two-game series decided by total goals, and because the Galaxy beat the Sounders, 3-0, in last week's opener, it will enter Sunday's rematch with a three-goal advantage.

Reporting from East Hartford, Conn. -- Edson Buddle's lower lip was split, stitched up hastily in the locker room so that he could get back on the field and continue tilting at windmills and chasing unicorns. It was all a dream, wasn't it? After all, how likely was it that a player with a mere 11 minutes of U.S. national team experience seven years ago would be seriously considered for the World Cup? How likely was it that a player who had not played a single qualifying game for Germany 2006, let alone South Africa 2010, would even be looked at. Buddle was not even a blip on the U.S. radar, and as recently as March people would have laughed at the very idea.

The Galaxy and Chivas USA share a stadium, practice fields, a parking lot and a gymnasium, which means players from both teams frequently bump into one another in the hallways of the Home Depot Center. Most of the time, that's not a problem. When the players bump into one another on the field, however — well, that's a different story. The teams renewed hostilities Thursday before an announced crowd of 19,805 and the match once again played to form, with both sides leaving blood on the field and the Galaxy escaping with a 2-0 victory in the Super Clasico on two goals by Edson Buddle.

A balky hamstring has left Landon Donovan's status for the MLS Western Conference final in Seattle uncertain and the Galaxy could be missing as many as two other regulars to injury as well. Donovan, a playmaking and scoring midfielder, missed four games to leg problems during the regular season and came out of the first leg of the conference final last Sunday with what has been described as hamstring tightness. He trained Friday for the first time in five days and was hopeful about his progress.