Watch: Free-scoring LA Galaxy pay tribute to defender A.J. DeLaGarza and family in emotional win over Colorado Rapids in Carson

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On a night of heartfelt tributes to A.J. DeLaGarza’s new-born son, Luka, who died Thursday after just a handful of days on this earth because of a congenital heart defect, the LA Galaxy gave perhaps the most stirring performance soccer players can give, walloping their opponent in an exuberant 6-0 romp Friday that represented the team’s biggest margin of victory since the high-scoring 1998 season.

“We think the world of A.J. [DeLaGarza] and his family,” coach Bruce Arena said. “It’s a difficult moment, so our thoughts are definitely with them. It was emotional. He’s a person that we all care about. He’s such a great person. Him and his wife. It’s awful difficult to be in that position. We feel his pain, and we will be as supportive as we can be for A.J. and his family. Certainly, our thoughts were with him tonight. It’s certainly it was a game we wanted to win for him.”

“We play a sport for a living that we tend to think is very important, and people I think get carried away with parts of it,” said Landon Donovan. “We try to keep it all in perspective and life is more important. We’re heartbroken for our teammate [A.J. DeLaGarza] and our friend Megan [DeLaGarza] and their family and we do our job and we get on with it, but it doesn’t change what happened yesterday. That’s going to be a part of our season going forward; it doesn’t mean that after tonight we forget about it. It’s still a piece of all of us that we feel is lost and it’s a sad night.”

“Obviously it’s a tough time for A.J. [DeLaGarza] and his family, but obviously for us as well,” said DeLaGarza’s college friend and central defensive partner Omar Gonzalez. “He is part of the family and he is a longtime friend and teammate of mine so I definitely feel for him. There aren’t words to express how I feel and there aren’t words to say to him because I don’t understand. It is really tough so we just want to let him know that we are here for him no matter what. If he needs a shoulder to lean on, we’ll be ready when he is ready to talk about it. Tonight, I just texted him and said, ‘is there something I can do for Luca?’ He said, ‘just get a shutout, and play hard for Luca. That would mean the most.’ And everyone is wearing the black Luca armbands; some of us wore the shirts. Tonight was about something bigger than all of us and playing for his family. It’s just great that there’s so much love here and I’m happy that we could get this win for him tonight.”

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