The LA Galaxy go back to their typical 2025 form with a 2-1 loss to Austin FC at home.
Greg Vanney admits that a change in the lineup was a mistake while Edwin Cerillo voices his support for protesting fans.
The LA Galaxy walked into Dignity Health Sports park with their best run of the season just behind them after going undefeated in three games with wins in their last two.
They faced Austin FC, at-the-time holders of ninth place in the conference and the coveted play-in spot. It’s only July but this was already a must-win fixture for the Galaxy to realistically keep their playoff hopes alive.
It got off to an interesting start with players of both teams complaining of the match balls feeling underinflated. This caused lengthy stoppages in the game’s early minutes despite the balls being inflated to 14 PSI (the International Football Association Board, IFAB states ball pressure must be between 8.5-15.6 PSI). The game carried on with the flat-feeling balls and prohibited either side from feeling comfortable and settling into a regular match tempo.
Zanka might blame the ball for a poor giveaway in his own half that gave Austin the game’s first proper shot in the 15th minute. He was lucky to be bailed out by a soft finish from Owen Wolff, but that wouldn’t be the end of Zanka’s troubles in this match.
The Galaxy’s attacking unit seemed to respond after that close-call.
In the 22nd minute Gabriel Pec pulled off a classy trivela pass to find Miki Yamane in-behind Austin’s defense. He replied with a pass across the box to Matheus Nascimento, whose cheeky backheeled attempt just rolled wide of Brad Stuver’s goal.
The game started to look like it was picking up intensity as the first half progressed but it unfortunately boiled over in the 35th minute when Julian Aude took a hard knock with Ilie Sánchez.
Austin’s Spanish midfield won the contested ball with a stretched out foot but Aude couldn’t stop his momentum and the two collided like freight trains. Sánchez got right back up holding his chest while Aude went down and stayed down for about three minutes until he was substituted for John Nelson.
Vanney mentioned that Aude suffered a head injury and his cheek was swollen. He wasn’t sure if the medical staff had found that Aude had picked up a concussion.
John Nelson just made his second touch in the game, a pass to Joseph Paintsil that the Ghanaian miscontrolled poorly and allowed to roll out for an Austin throw-in, when the Verde and Black scored the game’s opener with a quick seven-pass sequence.
Diego Rubio picked up the ball in midfield and hardly faced any pressure from Edwin Cerillo, who was extra cautious after picking up a yellow card just three minutes into the game. Instead of pressuring Rubio or getting a challenge in, Cerillo put his hands up and allowed the Chilean midfielder to turn and find Myrto Uzuni. Uzuni took a quick touch to cut across Maya Yoshida before releasing a shot that curled past Novak Micovic and into the side netting to give Austin the lead in the 40th minute.
Both teams continued to exchange blows as the match progressed with the Galaxy having the bulk of the chances and a couple of close calls.
In the 49th minute Gabriel Pec hit a curler which bounced off the post and rolled across the face of Stuver’s goal, heartbreakingly without going in. In the 56th Diego Fagundez rolled a pass across Austin’s box and Mikkel Dressler slid to intercept. Fagundez’s pass went through Dressler’s legs before the defender turned his body and blocked the ball from going past him with both of his hands.
Center referee Ricardo Fiero didn’t award the penalty and VAR Kevin Stott agreed with the decision, citing that the one hand that they deemed did make contact with the ball was in a natural position and thus not punishable.
Austin doubled their lead in the 63rd minute after placing heavy pressure on Nascimento ball deep in his own half. They then got themselves inside of Micovic’s box where the ball took a funny deflection off of Zanka. He and Nelson try to shield the ball for Micovic to come out and claim but only get in each other’s way, allowing Rubio to sneak around and poke the ball away from the Galaxy’s keeper and into the path of Wolff to put the ball past Yamane in goal.
The scoreline remained unchanged until after regulation time. Joseph Paintsil got pulled down inside Austin’s box in the first of eight added minutes and this time Fiero did give the penalty. Painstil slotted it to bring the Galaxy within a goal but the team couldn’t do enough to equalize before the final whistle.
Zanka started in place of Emiro Gárces and nearly gave up a goal early on before being directly involved in conceding the eventual winner.
This was an unusual change to make on paper as the partnership of Gárces and Maya Yoshida had been performing exceptionally in recent games. They conceded just twice in the last four games, a significant improvement from the 1.9 goals conceded per game on average. With Zanka on the pitch, the team reverted right back to conceding two goals.
I asked Greg Vanney to explain the change and he said, “Emiro is sitting on four yellow cards at the moment. It’s a calculation with three games in the week knowing also that we play LAFC and they have [Denis] Bouanga on the side that you have to defend. It’s a calculation of trying to protect him in some ways hoping that our two veteran centerbacks can hold the fort down in a game like tonight at home against a team that is missing their primary forward and we didn’t do it, so the calculation was wrong and that’s the facts.”
As Vanney mentioned, the LA Galaxy face LAFC at BMO Stadium this Saturday, July 19th. They’ll count on Gárces but won’t have their supporter groups behind them, who will boycott for the fourth straight game again after continuing to do so against Austin.
Edwin Cerillo voiced his support for the fans after the match. “We are going through a moment where there are things outside of football that hurts our people. The latino people have 100% support, and these are things outside of the pitch.”
While the things on the pitch aren’t nearly as devastating as those going on off of it, the Galaxy have gone right back to failing to offer respite or support on an organizational level to those backing the blue, white, and gold.
PHOTO: Andre Bannis//LAXSportsNation
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