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MLS LA Galaxy

LA Galaxy Fall 2-0 on the Road to Austin FC at Q2 Stadium on Saturday Afternoon

April 27, 2024 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
LA Galaxy News Release


AUSTIN, Texas - Playing in their sixth road match of the 2024 campaign, the LA Galaxy were shut out for the first time this season in a 2-0 loss on the road to Austin FC at Q2 Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Goal-Scoring Plays

ATX - Diego Rubio (Jader Obrian), 7th minute: Diego Rubio's low shot from inside the box was converted at the far post.

ATX - Jader Obrian (Alex Ring), 19th minute: After winning the ball, Alex Ring delivered a long pass down the right flank that Jader Obrian latched onto and his ensuing shot from the edge of the penalty area was fired in.

Postgame Notes

Through 10 matches played during the 2024 MLS Regular Season, the LA Galaxy hold a 5-2-3 record (21 GF,17 GA; 18 points), lead the Western Conference and sit in second place in the Supporters' Shield standings behind only Inter Miami CF (5-2-3; 22 GF, 15 GA; 18 points).

Saturday's match marked the seventh MLS regular-season meeting between the Galaxy and Austin, with LA leading the all-time series 4-2-1.

In six road matches played during the 2024 MLS Regular Season, the LA Galaxy hold a record of 3-2-1 (12 GF, 10 GA).

It marked the first time in 10 games this season that the Galaxy were held scoreless.

Riqui Puig finished the match with a game-high five chances created, won eight of 15 duels and completed 85 of 92 passes (92.4%) and four dribbles against Austin.

Puig will miss next week's match against Seattle Sounders FC due to yellow-card accumulation after receiving his fifth yellow card of the 2024 campaign.

Jalen Neal made his first appearance in league play for the Galaxy dating back to June 11, 2023, a span of 321 days without playing a regular-season match. In 45 minutes of action as a second-half substitute, Neal completed 29 of 31 passes (93.5%), won three of two duels and won one tackle.

In his second appearance of the season, Jonathan Pérez completed 11 of 11 passes (100%), won three of five duels and two of two tackles in 11 minutes played against Austin.

Next Game

Next up, the LA Galaxy travel to face Seattle Sounders FC at Lumen Field on Sunday, May 5 (3:45 p.m. PT, free on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, FS1, FOX Deportes).

2024 MLS Regular Season

LA Galaxy (5-2-3, 18pts) vs. Austin FC (4-3-3, 15pts)

Saturday, April 27, 2024 - Q2 Stadium (Austin, Texas)

Goals by Half 1 2 F

LA Galaxy 0 0 0

Austin FC 2 0 2

Scoring Summary:

ATX: Rubio (Obrian), 7

ATX: Obrian (Ring), 19

Misconduct Summary:

LA: Cáceres (caution), 9

LA: Puig (caution), 22

ATX: Obrian (caution), 27

ATX: Pereira (caution), 43

ATX: Valencia (caution), 89

Lineups:

LA: GK John McCarthy; D Miki Yamane (Mauricio Cuevas, 79), D Maya Yoshida ©, D Martín Cáceres (Jalen Neal, 46), D Julián Aude (Jonathan Pérez, 79); M Mark Delgado, M Gastón Brugman (Edwin Cerrillo, 65), M Riqui Puig, F Gabriel Pec, F Joseph Paintsil, F Miguel Berry (Diego Fagundez, 46)

Substitutes Not Used: GK Novak Mićović; D John Nelson; M Daniel Aguirre, M Gino Vivi

TOTAL SHOTS: 16 (Riqui Puig, 6); SHOTS ON GOAL: 5 (Joseph Paintsil, Riqui Puig, 2); FOULS: 13 (Maya Yoshida, 3); OFFSIDES: 1; CORNER KICKS: 10; SAVES: 3

ATX: GK Brad Stuver, D Guilherme Biro, D Brendan Hines-Ike, D Julio Cascante, D Jon Gallagher; M Daniel Pereira (Jhojan Valencia, 82), M Alexander Ring, M Emiliano Rigoni (Ethan Finlay, 82), M Sebastian Driussi ©, M Jader Obrian (Owen Wolff, 58); F Diego Rubio (Gyasi Zardes, 71)

Substitutes Not Used: GK Stefan Cleveland, D Matt Hedges, D Hector Jimenez, M Zan Kolmanic, F CJ Fodrey

TOTAL SHOTS: 9 (Sebastian Driussi, 3); SHOTS ON GOAL: 5 (Diego Rubio, 2); FOULS: 13 (Four players tied, 2); OFFSIDES: 0; CORNER KICKS: 3; SAVES: 6

Referee: Victor Rivas

Assistant Referees: Jeffrey Greeson, Meghan Mullen

Fourth Official: Elijio Arreguin

VAR: Joe Dickerson

Weather: Partly Cloudy, 80 degrees

Attendance: 20,738

All statistics contained in this box score are unofficial

LA GALAXY POSTGAME QUOTES

LA GALAXY HEAD COACH GREG VANNEY

On the first 20 minutes of the match:

"We didn't show up for the first 20 minutes. I mean, it was as simple as that. We weren't competitively there, whether it was defending, doing the work, getting close to guys. We just weren't to the speed that we needed to be at, and the game tilted on us really fast. So for me, just an unacceptable start. We talked about these early games, it was imperative to get off to a good start because the difference can be in the first 15 minutes. And we came out and laid an egg for the first 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and we found ourselves chasing an uphill battle for the rest of the game. You know, even at times through the game, even though we had our moments and stretches of controlling things, still, just things were a little bit too slow and a little bit too passive. We conceded ground on the defensive side a lot. We ended up putting in a lot of work but a lot of work that didn't come to much in terms of fruits for the labor. And makes for a frustrating day. Again, as I said to the guys, having momentum in this league is ever so precious, and you want to make sure that you don't do anything to spoil that momentum, and come out and lay it all out on the line and really compete from the opening whistle and if a team beats us, they beat us. But we just can't even arrive in the first 20-plus minutes. And then we tried to push for it thereafter, and we just couldn't get the final actions. They had a lot of numbers in front of the goal. We obviously shifted Miguel out and tried to slide Joe in and bring Diego on and see if we could just speed up some things, and there just wasn't a ton of space. And we weren't really moving it fast enough to create anything meaningful there even in the second half, even though there were a couple moments that looked like they could build and a couple moments that -- I didn't see anything with the handball shouts or anything. So I just don't know what any of that was. So, anyways, that was a long-winded answer to your first 20 minutes.

On forward Miguel Berry and status of forward Dejan Joveljić:

"With Miguel, again, just he has not played a ton of minutes with the group and I felt a little bit just timing and rhythm and certain things there weren't as precise as we would like them to be. He always puts in a shift and he's always going to do some of the work. Again, it just comes down to how connected is the work to everybody else and what we are trying to get done for the day. There wasn't anything specifically I felt like he wasn't doing. I just was trying to shift some of our bodies around and see if we could speed up some things and you know try to use Joe's quickness between those center backs and tried something a little different on locks in situations. But they ended up so deep, there wasn't a ton of space to work with, and because we controlled so much of the second half, it just was, again, a lot of set possessions, controlled possessions, but there wasn't a lot of space to work with some of their speed or quicker guys. Dejan, he's going to be week-to-week. He's been kind of playing with a bit of a hip injury that has been holding him back. I mean, he's honestly probably been at 75 percent the last few games and it's just get to go a point where you want to keep doing this at 75 percent or do we need to try to shut him down and get him on to the right side of things, knowing that we have a really busy may from us and I don't want to keep jamming him through this busy May. So the sooner we can get him over the hump on this hip issue that he has, then we'll get him back to a hundred percent. So we are just kind of week-to-week and see how much we can push. We don't see it as anything long term, but we'll see how available he could even be next week.

On capitalizing when opposing teams sit low:

"I think there's a couple parts to that. One is, again, we've got to do a better job of not starting slow and getting ourselves behind the game one and two goals because then it certainly incentivizes the opposition to sit a little bit lower and really kind of protect the face of the goal. That's one of the things. The second is, just the speed of our final actions when we are in possessions and we do find those moments that we need to break, with the timing of things, needs to be sharper. I feel like we weren't so sharp on that side of things so that we can get to the necessary spots. And the third is, if a team is sitting that deep, you don't necessarily want all of your guys to be kind of small guys in the box. You'd have to have some kind of presence in the box, and having shifted Miguel out, we lost the size, and obviously not having Dejan, and you lose the second option as a striker. So that became a little bit of the challenge because now as you're putting crosses in, it's a little more difficult to win things in the air. You're playing off either perfect crosses that land on guys heads or second balls or quick actions where you're able to combine or get behind or get between the seams and get shots off, which becomes -- you have to be really precise in those moments. I think we certainly have the capability to do it. I think we need to not put ourselves in a situation where we're having to do that a lot, and if an opposition chooses to sit low on us, we have to really be able to control games more or less like we did in the second half but be more fruitful on how we go about our attacks and finishing things."

On defender Jalen Neal's return:

"It was great to get Jalen going. Martín is managing an issue himself, and I felt like in the first half, he'll be the first one to tell you that he just didn't feel like could he step tight to people and get close. So he was dropping and trying to control the depth and the space. When we do that, we concede a lot of territory from us. It became difficult for us to sustain attacks. And then we're playing a long field, and I think a lot of that is just he's trying to manage, it's more of a neuro injury that he's having, some pain, but it just was limiting him, which means that when we saw that going on, we wanted to get Jalen, it was a good opportunity. Jalen has got enough in his tank from his return to play and having a couple games with the second team that he was ready to get in this game. And so it gave us an opportunity to start to get him going. It was good to see him out there. He's going to still continue to have to work towards getting his rhythm and getting a lot of his decisions and things like that, timing, stuff like that worked out just because he has not played in a while but I thought this was a good game because we had a lot of the ball in the second half and he was able to do a lot more just counter-pressing and finding passes and things like that. He didn't have to do a ton of defensive work which maybe is a good way to get yourself back and going after a long stint away."

LA GALAXY DEFENDER MAYA YOSHIDA

On the first 20 minutes of the match:

"Yes. We made a wrong start in the game. Well, first seven minutes, conceded and then everything became more difficult. Of course, especially when you're here, Austin, humidity, everything made a more difficult situation. But we were not enough today, and no one deserves to talk anything to be honest. I don't deserve anything for my performance. We deserve to lose today. We are very disappointed. We have to learn from this defeat."

On the importance of momentum from being on top of the table and if momentum is lost after today's game:

"As I say, probably last game, last home game, it's still just nine, ten games. Too early to talk about the tables. We need to focus on ourselves, especially after a defeat like this game. We need to come back strong like we did after the defeat from LAFC last time. So we need to have a good recovery and recharge mentality and get ready for the game in Seattle. That's also a difficult against them away that we remember from last game, last season."

On possible effects of an early match time:

"Yeah, of course, it's not easy. It's a 10:30 a.m. kickoff in L.A. time and we have to eat at like 7:30 or something L.A. time. But again, there's no point to just find an excuse. We have to focus on ourselves. As I say, we don't deserve anything, and even though I speak here in front of the public, excusing the referee, excusing the pitch, the humidity, this is part of soccer, part of MLS. We have to adapt. I don't excuse (it). So I prefer to show a good reaction for the next game."

On defender Jalen Neal's return and what he brings to the group:

"He just came back, and well, the second half we dominated the game most of the time. It's difficult to say right now but it's always good to be back with core players on the squad. Also we have a couple injuries, suspension and some accidents, so we need to have a great squad and everyone has to be ready. Like today, Miguel played, and sorry for him that we didn't play well, and he has to sacrifice for us. But we need to be as one good, strong group to make solidarity and we keep doing, and Jalen has to show his quality, and he has confidence, for sure. But still, he just came back from a long-term injury so I don't want to push too much for him."

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Major League Soccer Stories from April 27, 2024


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