P/I/P Season 29: Playoffs Game 1 LA Galaxy vs Colorado, 10/26/24, 8 p.m. PST Apple TV

I'm going to give credit to Puig. He has cleaned up his game a lot, and we are not seeing the 'hero' ball we saw early on in the season. Much better at taking care of the ball and not coughing it up in bad situations.
I was thinking how much better Nelson is than Aude, and then Aude came on and man does he have some skills. I don't ever remember a Galaxy team with this much depth.

 

Puig was definitely reining it in. A few times he got too cute and coughed it up but in general he was more disciplined. I think part of that strategy is for him to pick the ball up wide, let outside back tuck underneath offering coverage and then if Riqui messes around trying to dribble two or three guys at midfield and coughs it up at least he’s out wide. It’s better but he’s less dangerous there and eats into either Pec or Paintsill’s space. Ideally he could take his skills centrally and deploy them judiciously, find Joveljic, Delgado, spray it wide, look for over the top and through balls without too much risk of passing it right to the other team. He’s definitely improved. He’s interesting in that positionally he sits so deep (he’s an 8 at heart in that sense). He’s a fantastic dribbler and loves scoring and playing the ten, but is better at long passes than vision in the final third. The one thing I wish he would add to his game is off the ball work that doesn’t lead to him scoring a goal (he’s willing to make gut busting runs to score a goal but when he sits deep sometimes he’s slow to get forward and show as an outlet or support attacker—we get a hole in the middle of the field and the attack stalls. And definitely even when he turns it over he is lackadaisical getting back). He was in great form dribbling yesterday though. He really is a handful in the midfield if you can’t keep up with him to get physical with him. I love how much fun he has too. This attack still has room to grow with ball movement and movement off the ball. And with Cerrillo and Garces I’m optimistic we can continue to push our luck and make a run here with nothing to lose on the road for the playoffs.

EDIT: ops sorry about the over long post. We’ve been pressing for a dominant complete performance for a while and needed for our confidence—even if it was against a weakened opponent it still felt good. I guess I just got carried away.

 

LA Galaxy
no significant weaknesses
Considering how the game played out, yep.

 

great:

Dejan (involved in literally every attack he was on the field for), 2 goals and an assist, his assist was a nice onetouch pass back to Puig. Both his goals were gorgeous, his first an aggressive header off a corner where he was being bodied back off the ball (not the thing I've ever seen called on a corner), his 2nd a nice patient ball played left footed shot.

Puig, clearly MOTM, key player in every attack. 2 goals and an assist. His goals were quintessential Puig, late run into the box from around the penalty shot and his assist....was a corner. Well now that we scratched that off, won't see that again for a while. One thing I forgot and still surprises me every time I see it, how capable he is at turning with the ball in a tight space and just dribbling into space. Puig can literally just create himself space. Any other player would struggle to find a pass when bodied by 3 defenders, but Puig turns to the weak spot and just dribbles through to space. Its nuts

Nelson, Man has he come into his own since Aude got injured. Nothing against Aude, but Nelson has solidified that starting spot imho. Lovely time to get your first goal, and nobody expected his goal to come from his right foot, lol.

Garces, Man has this kid proved himself. Yes it means Neal is no longer the starter but His lack of aggressiveness means Garces has taken it. Plus his recovery speed as a defender is top notch. Garces seems to make some errant bad passes but then he'll recover to makeup for his mistake. Dudes a baller, excellent pickup.

Good
Everyone else. Man I can't really pick out anyone who had a poor performance, everyone worked hard, everyone played for the win. Its just those 4 I'm calling out specifically as having great performances.

Except maybe JMac who was a spectator this match, lol.

 

Highlights and Pressers

(Colorado doesn't get one offensive highlight)

Vanney


Yoshida


Nelson

 

Nice summary and analysis.

Regarding Puig’s ability to turn on a dime in either direction: I was actually raving to a friend about Puig doing this to create space while we were watching the game.

 

Cinematic Highlight Time Folks

 

I forgot the game was on but started channel surfing on Apple+ at the exact moment the game started. Good omen!

 

Friday night is a weird time.