The Philadelphia Union was thoroughly outplayed Saturday night as they lost to Los Angeles Galaxy 5 to 1. It was result that one would not expect based on the first twenty minutes of the first half.

In those first twenty minutes, the Union looked like the better team as they consistently created opportunities in front of net. In the 11th minute, a Cristian Maidana corner kick fell fortunately to Captain Maurice Edu. Unfortunately, he was unable to keep his headed attempt on frame. The Union overall had seven corner kicks but was unable to create more real dangerous opportunities.

The game's momentum swung in the 23rd minute as a Galaxy long ball was headed by Union Defender Richie Marquez backwards where it ended up at the feet of Galaxy's Baggio Husidic. Husidic played the ball to Gyasi Zardes, who looked to beat Union goalkeeper Brian Sylvestre but was denied off the post. However, Husidic never gave up on the play and followed the rebound to give the Galaxy a 1-0 lead.

In the 35th minute, only 12 minutes later, the Galaxy would find their second goal as Zardes brought the ball down the left flank and found a wide open trailing Juninho at the top of the box for the easy goal and the 2-0 lead. Both Union central midfielders, Brian Carroll and Vincent Nogueira, looked to be out of position and not following Juninho, which allowed him to have basically a free run at net as well as the easy goal. The Union would go into halftime down 2-0, a deficit that they would not recover from.

In the second half, Zardes would get his goal in the 56th minute. Zardes found Galaxy Captain Robbie Keane with a long ball. Keane did well to find some space away from the defending Marquez and fire in a cross to the back post. Zardes continued to run after playing the ball to Keane, got on the end of the cross and put the Galaxy up 3-0 with a great finish. Zardes used the slight hesitation by the Union's Brian Carroll to get a step ahead of him and score the goal at the back post.

In a bright spot, CJ Sapong was able to put one of the board for the Union after he received the ball from Andrew Wenger, made an excellent turn on his defender and beat the keeper in the far left lower corner.

However, in the end, the Galaxy's talent and class shined through as they picked up two more goals in the 59th minute by Ishizaki and the 65th minute by Lletget to make the final score 5-1. Gyasi Zardes was the man of the match for the Galaxy as he gave the Union defense problems all nights on the wings and, for his effort, finished with 1 goal as well as 2 assists in his 71 minutes of play.

The Union will have to forget this sound defeat quickly as they have a very short turnaround when they play Seattle Sounders at PPL Park on Wednesday.