LA Galaxy Fall 3-0 on the Road to Vancouver Whitecaps FC at BC Place on Wednesday Night
September 15, 2022 – Major League Soccer (MLS) – LA Galaxy News Release
VANCOUVER, B.C. – Playing the second of three matches in the span of seven days, the LA Galaxy’s six-game unbeaten run came to an end with a 3-0 loss on the road to Vancouver Whitecaps FC at BC Place on Wednesday night.
Goal-Scoring Plays
VAN – Ryan Gauld, 57th minute: A failed clearance in the box fell to Ryan Gauld, whose shot from the right side of the penalty area was converted in at the near post.
VAN – Pedro Vite (Brian White, Luis Martins), 68th minute: In transition, Luis Martins cross from the left wing was flicked on by Brian White to Pedro Vite, who converted his shot at the near post from close range.
VAN – Tosaint Ricketts (Julian Gressel), 86th minute: Julian Gressel’s pass behind the Galaxy backline found Tosaint Ricketts, who curled his shot into the back of the net.
Postgame Notes
Wednesday’s match marked the 29th MLS regular-season meeting between LA and Vancouver, with the Galaxy leading the all-time series 14-10-6.
Following the loss to Vancouver, the Galaxy (11-12-7, 40 points) remained in eighth place in the Western Conference standings, with a game in hand and three points behind seventh-place Real Salt Lake (11-10-10, 43 points).
In 14 all-time regular-season games played between the two teams at Vancouver, LA holds a 4-6-4 record.
The Galaxy’s six-game unbeaten run came to an end in the loss to Vancouver.
LA fell to 4-7-4 in 15 matches played on the road in league play this season.
In the Galaxy’s last four matches played on the road, the club has posted a record of 1-1-2.
In his second start of the season, Martín Cáceres finished the match with a team-high nine possessions won.
Riqui Puig led the Galaxy with seven duels won, and ended the match with 80 completed passes (92% pass accuracy)
Kévin Cabral made his 50th start across all competitions with the Galaxy.
Derrick Williams finished the match with a team-high five clearances.
Next Game
Up next, the LA Galaxy return home to play host to the Colorado Rapids at Dignity Health Sports Park on Saturday, Sept. 17. The match on Sept. 17 kicks off at 7:30 p.m. PT and features a regional television broadcast on Spectrum SportsNet and a stream on LAGalaxy.com.
LA Galaxy (11-12-7, 40pts) at Vancouver Whitecaps FC (10-14-7, 37pts)
Sept. 14, 2022 – BC Place (Vancouver, B.C.)
Goals by Half 1 2 F
LA Galaxy 0 0 0
Vancouver Whitecaps FC 0 3 3
Scoring Summary:
VAN: Gauld, 57
VAN: Vite (White, Martins), 68
VAN: Ricketts (Gressel, 86)
Misconduct Summary:
VAN: Owusu (caution), 7
VAN: Martins (caution), 38
VAN: Vite (caution), 62
LA: Vázquez (caution), 63
VAN: Berhalter (caution), 81
Lineups:
LA: GK Jonathan Bond; D Julián Araujo, D Martín Cáceres, D Derrick Williams, D Chase Gasper; M Mark Delgado, M Gastón Brugman (Douglas Costa, 79), M Riqui Puig (Sacha Kljestan, 86), M Víctor Vázquez (Dejan Joveljić, 65), F Kévin Cabral (Samuel Grandsir, 65), F Javier “Chicharito” Hernández © (Efraín Álvarez, 80)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Jonathan Klinsmann; D Nick DePuy, D Kelvin Leerdam
TOTAL SHOTS: 12 (Riqui Puig, 4); SHOTS ON GOAL: 2 (Douglas Costa, Riqui Puig, 1); FOULS: 9 (Derrick Williams, 3); OFFSIDES: 1; CORNER KICKS: 9; SAVES: 3
VAN: GK Thomas Hasal; D Ranko Veselinovic, D Tristan Blackmon, D Jake Nerwinski; M Luis Martins (Marcus Godinho, 70), M Leonard Owusu (Sebastian Berhalter, 70), M Andres Cubas, M Ryan Gauld ©, M Ryan Raposo (Julian Gressel, 64), M Pedro Vite (Russell Teibert, 80); F Brian White (Tosaint Ricketts, 80)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Cody Cropper; D Javain Brown, M Alessandro Schopf, F Cristian Dajome
TOTAL SHOTS: 11 (Tristan Blackmon, Ryan Gauld, 3); SHOTS ON GOAL: 6 (Tristan Blackmon, 2); FOULS: 7 (Seven players tied, 1); OFFSIDES: 0; CORNER KICKS: 3; SAVES: 2
Referee: Fotis Bazakos
Assistant Referees: Oscar Mitchell-Carvalho, Chris Wattam
Fourth Official: Alex Chilowicz
VAR: Drew Fischer
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 66 degrees
Attendance: 16,681
LA GALAXY POSTGAME QUOTES
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH GREG VANNEY
On where the defensive breakdowns were from Vancouver’s first goal to their second goal, that ultimately led to the Galaxy chasing the game:
“The first one is off of a set piece. Javier [Hernández] has a situation on the front end, where maybe we don’t get a call, it comes down, they get a call. They get a free kick. It deflects. It goes out for a corner. The first corner, I think we manage and we block. The second corner, I feel like we miss two chances, maybe, to clear the ball. And one of their players just kind of recycles. One of our guys doesn’t stay inside of the play and the ball finds [Ryan] Gauld, and he buries it. We have two chances to deal with the scenario and we didn’t. Now we’re down 1-0. Second goal, it’s our corner kick and we… we’ve played some balls in early in the game. I guess the guys have the option to play short and do a three-man action, to try to soften up the face of the goal. Chase [Gasper] just got stuck with the ball. That led to a transition. And we don’t manage the transition in the end. Now we’re down two, and we’re chasing it. Our opportunities for the first 60 minutes, we had so much of the ball. We played the game in their half of the field. We still are short in turning the possessions into more chances. We’re getting to good spots, and turning those good spots into semi-good chances. But then when we’re getting to good chances, then we’re not finishing those chances properly. And we allow the team to hang around a bit, until we give up one and now we’re on the wrong side of it. So, we’ve got to be more… at the end of the day, we’ve got to be better on the final action. We’ve got to punish teams when you have that much of the game in their attacking game. And then we also have to see games out. If the opposition gets those breaks and gets those moments in set pieces, things like that. Because that’s all it’s going to come down to, transitions and set pieces. And, ultimately, that became the situation in the end. Yeah, we can go through details, but that’s sort of the flow of the game. We have a couple good opportunities to go up, and we don’t. But, still, some of the possession needs to become dangerous attacks. More of our running needs to go through the lines. Our sprinting needs to start before the pass is played, not after the pass is played. There’s things like that where we just lose little bits of time. Sometimes, they’re allowing teams to get in front of their goal and protect the goal. And we’ve got to be a little sharper in that for sure. And we’ve got to do that quickly.”
On how he’ll handle the quick turnaround with the game this Saturday against Colorado Rapids at home:
“I think there’s things to consider. From personnel, shape. It’s a quick turnaround, there’s things to consider as we move into the weekend. To, again, turn possession into chances. Chances into goals. That’s ultimately the thing that we need to accomplish between now and Saturday. Because in these games, we have a lot of the ball. But we need to score more goals on that. And, again, we need to bury opposition when we have the chance to bury them. Otherwise, we can’t just let them hang around. Because we’re letting teams hang around right now.”
On the amount of possession the team has, but not turning into the chances they’re looking for and if that’s just not who this team is:
“I think part of it is that it’s the timing of the movement. It’s the organization of the body to be able to play fast when we get in between lines, when we break lines. To be able to go forward and attack the back line. It’s getting runners to run. Before the players are playing passes so that the pass can lead them into the depth. We’re hesitating and waiting for the pass before we run sometimes. Sometimes we make the runs, we don’t get the pass. For me, some of this comes down to timing. Some of it comes down to being more dynamic. Like I said, we have players who want to receive the ball in between the lines, we need more players who want to run and receive the ball, on the run, in behind the line, creating an advantage and a time advantage, creating space in front of the goal. Things like that. And that’s been our work all season. Is trying to find that balance between what I call space users, who are our guys who receive the ball in between the lines, and the guys who are actually space creators or unbalancers, your guys who are running into the depth, giving you that time advantage to finish opportunities. We’ve left, especially with the amount of possession we’ve had the last couple games, we’ve left too many opportunities to be dangerous on the table and teams are… we’re not ruthless enough in that final piece to put these teams away. But, that’s what it is. Has that been some of the problem for the season? Yeah, that’s been one of them. We do get there sometimes, but then we don’t make the best cross. We don’t put the ball in the right place. We don’t finish the chance. It’s the connection of all those things, when you destabilize, to when you finish, it’s the connection of two or three passes that have to be done well and right, and at the right time, in order for things to end up in the back of the net. And more times than we should, we’re coming up short on some of those.”
LA GALAXY DEFENDER DERRICK WILLIAMS
On what the team is missing in putting games away…
“I feel like what Greg says just getting that goal and really like changing the momentum because we had all the ball. We were in control. We were comfortable all game, I felt like, and then we just let them hang on a bit too long. They get a chance and then they get momentum. They score and we make it difficult for ourselves where we shouldn’t have been in a position at the start. In the first half, they couldn’t get close to us really but we just need to make better chances. Yeah, really frustrating.”
On what the team needs to do in high-pressure matches…
“Just everyone stepping up, everyone playing as best as they can. And then if we all do that, then whatever the result then we can hold our hands up. But, like you said, it’s similar to last year. We shouldn’t even be in this position. Today was a perfect example where you dominate the ball, don’t create the chances, they score a goal and then things fall apart. It’s frustrating, but we have to get on with it. We’ve got another massive game, the biggest game of the season coming up, and we have to put this one behind us and have this feeling that we’re feeling now and bring it into the game. So we’re hurting a bit. So everyone’s like come on, let’s leave it all out there and really go for this game.”
On the defense needing to stop allowing goals…
“One hundred percent. That’s nowhere near good enough. It hurts when you hear it like that. We need standards. It needs to hurt us a lot more, the whole team. Like you said, it could go down to goal difference, so we need to pick ourselves up. We have a better goal difference than [Real Salt Lake] at the minute, so hopefully we can make it even better at the weekend and really push on because we were just six unbeaten, but we need to turn some of these draws into wins. Our season is on the line now, so we have to do it. If we don’t do it then we don’t deserve it. Let’s go. We’re ready.”
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