‘There’s obviously urgency’: With playoff hopes in peril, Galaxy pick up vital win
Sunday night’s match wasn’t so much a must-win game as it was a can’t-lose one for the Galaxy.
After three consecutive losses, all to MLS Western Conference opponents, the Galaxy entered their game against Atlanta United below the playoff line for the first time this season, closer to last place than they were to first.
Another loss and the tailspin might become irreversible.
“There’s obviously urgency,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney acknowledged before the game. “We all feel that.”
And they played like it, riding an early goal from Kévin Cabral, a late score from Dejan Joveljic and three saves from goalkeeper Jonathan Bond to a 2-0 win over Atlanta United before an announced 24,122 at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Mohammed Abdullateef, a soccer fan in Qatar, has amassed one of the largest collections of historic World Cup tickets in the world.
Even with Sunday’s win, the losing streak — matching the longest in nearly two years and part of a slide in which the Galaxy have won just four of their last 13 games across all competitions — has left the team in a deep enough hole that it could take time to climb out. As a result, Vanney is preaching patience to go along with that urgency.
“Where we are at this moment and where we are in the process, maybe that’s what we have to understand,” he said. “You can’t run before you walk. You can’t sprint before you can jog.
“We find consistency, we find the pieces that really fit together, we could go from being a borderline playoff team to being a contender very quickly.”
Time is becoming a factor, though. The Galaxy have made the playoffs just once since 2017, and while the win over Atlanta — their first over United since it entered MLS six years ago — lifted them into seventh place in the conference standings, ahead of Portland on a tiebreaker, that spot is tenuous with nearly two-thirds of the season gone.
“It was a very important game for a lot of reasons,” Vanney said after the win. “It’s hard to get the first [result] when you’ve gone through a tough stretch. And the guys obviously got the first one. Hopefully we continue to build off of that.”
Whatever problems the Galaxy (9-9-3) have had this season aren’t tied to spending. The Galaxy have the second-highest team payroll in MLS. But they’re spending more than 20% of that money — $4.65 million — on designated players Cabral and Douglas Costa, who have combined to miss almost as many minutes as they have played.
On Sunday, they joined captain Javier “Chicharito” Hernández — returning from a two-game absence caused by COVID-19 — in the lineup, marking the first time in more than two months that all three Galaxy DPs started together. And it paid off with Cabral putting the team in front in the seventh minute with his first MLS goal since October.
Costa made it happen, slipping a nifty pass in front of an on-charging Hernández, whose right-footed shot from about 10 yards was turned away on a sprawling right-handed save by keeper Rocco Ríos Novo for Atlanta (6-9-6). But Ríos Novo could not control the rebound, which bounced toward the left post for Cabral and an easy tap-in.
That was a good omen because the Galaxy began the night 7-1-1 when they score first.
“In this league, if you score first, like 75% of the time you’re going to win,” Joveljic said. “If you don’t, it’s very hard to bounce back.”
Another good omen was the play of newly acquired Uruguayan midfielder Gastón Brugman, who occupied a pair of defenders on Cabral’s goal, helping make the score possible. He performed well in 64 minutes in his MLS debut, suggesting he might be the missing midfield piece Vanney has been seeking.
Then there’s Joveljic, who came on in the 75th minute to seal the win with his team-high ninth goal of the season deep in stoppage time. It was also his sixth goal in as many games at home, making him just the fourth player in team history to score in six consecutive home matches, joining a list that includes Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Carlos Ruiz.
Those players did that as starters. Joveljic has made 14 of his 19 appearances this season off the bench.
“If you asked me am I happy when I’m on the bench, of course I’m not,” Joveljic said. “Every player wants to play 90 minutes, [but] my job is to do the best that I can at that moment.”
The Galaxy, who might be running out of moments to make a playoff run, can say the same thing.
LAFC is telling some of its season-ticket holders they cannot renew next year because they sold their tickets during the pandemic, violating team policy.
