By: Wendy Pintor
The loss against San Diego FC marked the Galaxy's first defeat at Dignity Health Sports Park since the Regular Season and playoffs in 21 matches played at the venue (17-1-3), dating back to Oct. 21, 2023. The Galaxy entered the game with a 15-game winning streak across all competitions at Dignity Health Sports as the home team, dating back to May 25, 2024. They outscored their opponents 45-19.
The LA Galaxy debuted with some new faces, three players made their debut for the club in the match against San Diego. Christian Ramirez started and locked in 63 minutes of action in the loss to San Diego. Also in his MLS and LA Galaxy debut, Lucas Sanabria started and played the same 63 minutes against SDFC and Elijah Wynder made his league and team debut coming off the bench, locking 27 minutes of action.
LA Galaxy was scored on first after an innocent mistake, SD – Anders Dreyer was quick enough to receive the assisted play from Hirving Lozano, in the 52nd minute, Emiro Garces' first touch landed to Hirving Lozano inside the box. Lozano quickly laid the ball off into the path of Anders Dreyer, whose first-time shot was fired past young goal,keeper Novak Mićović.
When one of the players was asked on Garces performance they said, “You can see his physical ability is fantastic. He's very spaced, fast and strong, but at the same time, he has to improve with the ball, and tactically, as well. The small detail of which position, when we pass over to zone, marking, intercepting, and anticipating the game, this is the next step for him to improve his career. This is very obvious. If he wants to improve it, I'm here, and everybody is here. I think he can easily improve because he has already physical ability. I cannot compete with him in a 30-meter sprint.”
Although it seemed to be that LA Galaxy would come back, it’s as if the game was nicely scripted for SDFC to win as – Anders Dreyer logged another goal in the 90+3rd minute, Tomas Angel slipped in a pass behind the Galaxy defense to the goal scoring forward, who tapped in his first-time effort into the far corner. Crushing the reigning six-time Champions 2-0 at home.
Despite what Coach Greg mentioned in the press conference, Miki Yamane created a game-high four chances, won four of four tackles and completed 63 of 72 passes in the loss to San Diego. Emiro Garces completed 75 of 80 passes (93.8%), won a game-high 14 possessions and won 11 of 19 duels and won four of eight tackles against SDFC. But that wasn’t enough and led the head coach to say,
“ It's just a fact at this point. I said to them, ‘this can't happen.’ Like this is where we get points. This is where we win. We establish that as something that's very important to us. It's something we did last year. But we don't lose at home. Is it a rallying cry? It's a wake-up call, I guess, as all of them are. It's just we have got to be more prepared and we've got to be better, especially at home, but we've got to be better and we've got to build ourselves into the season. The integration of our group and the understanding of playing at home versus playing on the road, all those things need to be tightened up."
He also added, “I believe that the Galaxy are always going to get everybody's best shot. Everybody wants to beat the Galaxy. And you know, because of the club that it is, that's something you deal with all the time. I think being the champion, for sure.”
The Galaxy and San Diego will play once more during the 2025 MLS Regular Season, with LA traveling to face them at Snapdragon Stadium on Saturday, May 24 at 1:30 p.m. PT (MLS Season Pass)
Lineups:
LA: GK Novak Mićović; D Miki Yamane, D Emiro Garces, D Maya Yoshida, D John Nelson (Julián Aude, 72); M Edwin Cerrillo, M Lucas Sanabria (Elijah Wynder, 63), M Marco Reus (Ruben Ramos Jr., 72), M Diego Fagundez, M Gabriel Pec, F Christian Ramirez (Miguel Berry, 63)
Substitutes Not Used: GK John McCarthy; D Eriq Zavaleta, D Zanka, M Tucker Lepley, M Isaiah Parente
