Official: 2020 LA Galaxy II Season

3-0 defeat at home against San Diego. Unfortunately (or fortunately I should say...), the replay is not available on USL YouTube channel, so I won't make any recap.

Here are the highlights :



Next game is next week against Las Vegas, once again at home. 3 points is an obligation for Los Dos.

 

Gameday! G2 plays Las Vegas at home, a very winnable match against a team they beat 4-3 a few weeks ago. With a win Los Dos will be back in a playoff spot. Can the young Galaxys bounce back from their defeat last week? Game is at 7 PM.

 

Solid lineup. Vazquez is back, it could mean more stability in defense. Johnny Perez on the bench.

 

Final score : 3-2. Everything was not perfect but once again a great fight by Los Dos.

With this win G2 now have 21 points in 12 games and are second in their group, with San Diego sitting third with 19 points (13 games) and Orange County next with 18 points out of 12 matches.

I'll provide a recap later, it's 6 AM in France ahah. Good night!

 

Los Dos were down 2-0 after 30 minutes but never looked lost, and it paid off. Two goals for Williams (4th in the USL Golden Boot race) and another for Johnny Perez, who had a great entrance. Credit to the team who didn't panic, I'm always impressed by their maturity. Junior Gonzalez is definitely a good coach.

The problem remains the same for Los Dos : it's too easy for opposite players to run through their defense. Jesus Vazquez was on fault on both goals (especially on the first, too passive), but as usual was very good otherwise. Consistency is an issue for him, it's a shame because he's not far from the first team.

Two goals conceded by Romero but I can't blame him on both goals, otherwise a few solid saves, as our GK continues his good season. Cuevas was strong on one-on-one defending most of the time, and hit a perfect long ball to Perez on his goal.

Ontiveros had one of his best games for G2, very few trouble on his right side and made a great run (Las Vegas defense was suspect on this one) and a solid cross to Williams on the first goal. Surprisingly, Ontiveros is now leading alone the team in assists with three this year (all for Williams I believe). Jalen Neal was once again very solid, to me he's the good surprise coming off the Academy this season.

Vera had a great game, his best in years. I'm not surprised, I've always said the only spot he can perform is the box-to-box position. We've tried a few youngsters there this season (Alvarado, Valdez, Gonzalez), none of them convinced me, so give Vera a run there.

Gutierrez was terrible, Nava is all about speed but the finishing touch is not here yet. Jorge Hernandez still lacks consistency, he's good but at the same spot Johnny Perez, who's almost 2.5 years younger than him, will probably soon be better, and I don't speak about Efrain.

Next game is another home game, this time against San Diego, who beat us 3-0 last week. Crucial game (at this point, all are crucial) for G2 in the playoffs race.

 

Home game against San Diego tomorrow (7 PM, during our game at RSL). Landon's team got a great result last week at Phoenix, a 3-2 win thanks to hat trick by Rubio Rubin. Huge match in the playoffs race.

 

No, Romero made a terrible mistake a few minutes after, which ended with a shot just over the goal. It was Jalen Neal (who was great until this mistake) who made a late play in the box which resulted in a PK.

Deserved point for Los Dos who were the most effective team most of the night. Once again they came from behind, and scored a goal in stoppage time a few minutes after a San Diego player (former LA Galaxy Academy Elijah Martin) was sent off. Alejandro Alvarado scored his first Galaxy goal off a Mauricio Cuevas cross, very surprising given he's not a tall kid, but this Los Dos team never gives up.

MOTM : Mauricio Cuevas, assisted the game tying goal and was a beast on defense, once again solid in one vs. one defending.

 

This was the correct decision.

From a pure soccer standpoint :

On a short term vision, this is not good news for Los Dos. Ontiveros's strength was his versatility. G2 have a solid lineup but a very short bench (especially on defense), and Ontiveros could fill in and do OK at every position. Plus he played his best soccer recently, so his loss is meaningful.

On a long term vision, I don't think the Galaxy organization lost a great player, as he was decent everywhere but not great at something. He was worth the try but I couldn't see him higher than USL.

 

Los Dos play tonight at Las Vegas (7:30 PM), in another crucial game for the playoffs. Las Vegas (coached by Frank Yallop) are eliminated from playoffs contention and Los Dos beat them twice this year (in narrow games), so there is hope but our youngsters have to take care of business.

Let's go Galaxys!

 

2-2 draw at Las Vegas. Los Dos thought they finished the hard job after going from 0-1 to 2-1 but conceded a stoppage-time equalizer. The draw is a fair result as Los Dos looked disjointed and capitalized on two individual mistakes. In the same time, Orange County (Los Dos next opponent) lost to Phoenix, so the three points would have been huge.



Romero was once again oustanding and made two clutch plays 1) when Los Dos were trailing 1-0, huge one-on-one save, fifteen seconds later Williams scored the tying goal 2) in the last second a great save on his line to prevent a Las Vegas winner. And I don't count many other saves. MOTM to me.

Augustine Williams lacked service all night long but created a goal all by himself, exploiting a defender mistake. Once again he saved the team.

Johnny Perez had up-and-down moments but scored the second goal on an opportunistc play. Alvarado capitalized on the goal he scored earlier this week and had a good performance in his box-to-box role.

Solid game by Neal, and Cuevas crosses are always very impressive. Gutierrez came off the bench and was terrible but managed to create a goal on a hopeful pass so credit to his hustle.

Jorge Hernandez his having a bad span, he has tried too much and has held the ball too long recently. Too easy to defend against him as he is not physical enough to keep the ball. He has to wake up.

Next game is maybe the most important game of the season, at home against Orange County on Wednesday.

 

Two huge games tonight in Los Dos group : G2 - Orange County and San Diego - Phoenix (both at 7 PM). Los Dos can qualify for the playoffs tonight if :

- they beat Orange County.
- San Diego draws or loses to Phoenix.

Biggest game of the year, let's go Galaxys!