SEATTLE – The highlights from the Los Angeles Galaxy's 1-0 win over Seattle Sounders FC will feature two players prominently: Edson Buddle and Donovan Ricketts.Buddle scored an audacious 35-yard volley which matches the quality of any other strike this year and Ricketts pulled off eight saves, seven in the first half, to repel Seattle's attack.Yet, after the game, each knew he wasn't the star of the match.“All credit to my defense. They smothered the Seattle attack and whatever I had to do, I did,” Ricketts shrugged. Buddle similarly pointed to team shape as paramount.A viciously efficient defensive organization kept Seattle's attack at bay even with the Sounders thrusting absolutely everything towards Ricketts' goal.“That's just effort,” Landon Donovan said of his side's efficiency at closing down space. “If you put in the effort to make an extra 10 yard sprint, then you get rewarded for it, and everybody on the field did that tonight.”Donovan and David Beckham played substantial, if unheralded roles, protecting the fullbacks behind them from a pair of pacy wingers and tracking overlapping runs. The Englishman, only recently back from an Achilles tendon tear, said he could feel his injury acting up, but pushed through it.“It's very sore, I'm not going to lie,” Beckham said. “It felt sore in the first half and it was just a case of getting through it.”When running themselves ragged to close down space, the Galaxy players let the Sounders know they were there. Dema Kovalenko in particular snarled into some rough tackles, and Donovan helped set the tone by shoving James Riley off the ball early on.“Any talented player becomes better when they have time and space to do things,” Donovan explained. “If you're physical and you make the game hard, most talented players don't like that.“We made sure we were real physical with them. That's how you have to play at this time of the year if you want to win.”The tenacity of the defense allowed the game's lone goal to stand up as the winner, but the quality of the strike was high enough decide any encounter.“It bounced perfectly for me to get a volley on it,” Buddle explained of his 38th minute strike. “I don't think anyone thought I would shoot from there, that's why I kind of shot it once the ball bounced up perfectly.”Ricketts could only chuckle when asked about the shot.“It was a beautiful goal, beautiful goal, but I'm not sure that's what he wanted to do,” the Jamaican laughed. “He scored against a world-class goalkeeper, man. I don't think I could have saved that either.”Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena seemed bemused as well.“I don't know how he pulled that off, to be honest with you,” Arena said.Neither did opposition coach Sigi Schmid, who held a far more stern take on things.“When you get a fortunate goal and it stands up then the game-plan looks really good,” Schmid bemoaned. “If we finish better and Donovan [Ricketts] doesn't have the game that he has, we maybe walk off this field 2 [or] 3-1 winners.”But they didn't, and Ricketts did. And the goal went in. And Arena's game-plan looks pretty good right now.It might have taken some highlight-reel material from Buddle and Ricketts to ensure the win, but the overall team display stood out even more.Keep updated with Major League Soccer throughout the playoffs by visiting Goal.com's MLS page and joining Goal.com USA's Facebook fan page