P/I/P Season 31 Game 3 - LA Galaxy at Colorado, 3/7/26, 6:30 p.m. PST - Apple TV

Not much to say anymore
1-3

 

That's all she wrote folks.

 

Well, as usual since the start of the season, Micovic could have done better.

 

Micovic has to catch that, you can't block that shot right back to the 6. Horrible.

 

Think it’s time to try Marcinkowski in goal.

And maybe hire a defensive coach since Vanney hasn’t figured out D in 4+ years.

 

Update 1-4

 

I'm trying so hard not to talk about Pec! Ughhh.

 

I guess we’ll get to see Pec against Mount Pleasant.

 

Fortunately our next MLS opponent is probably the worst team in the WC, as we won't have our two DP wingers.

 

FT 1-4


Moving on

 

You would think. But no.

We had two right backs in that game, and neither of them, nor our defensive midfielders were around to cover the wide open run on the back post that put us down 2-1. I’m honestly disgusted. It does show that we are mentally a soft team, and we flunked the test, from the coach on down.

 

Brutal night. Injury to one of our key guys. Red card to another. Goalie showed his shakiness again.

I was happy with the performance until the red card. Thought we were much better than them at 1-1. But really disappointed in how we fell apart.

 

Agree about Micovic. I like how Marcinkowski plays better and never understood the decision to trade McCarthy and keep Micovic. As far as I know he has never made a pk save in his career (please correct me if I am wrong).

 

This. All I care about is how bad Paintsil’s injury is. He’s going to want to be healthy for the WC as well.

 

Same horrible defending we’ve seen for 5 seasons now. All of their goals were by unmarked players finishing easy chances. Ever notice how we almost never find our forwards unmarked in the box? That’s because our opponents know how to teach their players how to keep their defensive shape.
Yamane is the worst offender for losing his marks/positioning. Aude also let his guy nutmeg him on one of the goals. Even former defender of the year Glesnes can’t help this defense.

 

Not a huge fan of how hard it is to find the press conferences this year. For now, the Galaxy are putting out quotes in their “match report” but it always turns out later to be a woefully incomplete transcript.


LA Galaxy Postgame Top Quotes

LA Galaxy Head Coach Greg Vanney

On the game-changing red card:

“Gabe got into a situation where he was chasing and he has to know he’s on a yellow card and he can’t take that kind of risk and that kind of tackle. He has to keep running and run the guy into a one vs two and we can recover the ball. He’s got to make a better decision because the decision becomes a second yellow and that becomes we lose all momentum.”

On the outlook on this season despite tonight’s scoreline:

“Looking at New York City, looking at Charlotte and looking at tonight, for large stretches of those games we defended really well, again, I think we attacked really well in the Charlotte game, I thought we were nice and controlled by and large tonight and we were creating really good chances and I think there was more there for us to take. We have to remember that the last twenty minutes, and while it hurt and we took a lot of goals, its not the twenty minutes for us to focus on.”

On the positives in the first sixty minutes:

“Well, I thought our defensive shape and structure was good. I think, you know, they've evolved over with the new coach in possession, they've got their pivots really close, they're very calm on the ball, and because of that, they made good choices with the ball and they're competent in possession, but I just didn't think they were hurting us at all. And so I thought our patience, our decisions, we were starting to understand how to get pressure to them, who to release and where to release from, and I felt like that was what was gaining, adding some momentum for us, especially as we got into the second half. So, I thought we defended well. I thought some of our attacking moments were good.”

LA Galaxy Defender Jakob Glesnes

On tonight’s match:

“First of all, it was a tough game for me personally. It's never fun to see 4 goals in a game like this. We have to get better at finishing the games with 11 guys. On away games like this, it's tough to get points in, especially the first point, and then we're down 1-0. I felt like we had momentum in the second half when we scored the goal. But, when we're down to 10 men, you know, it's going to be tough. We are trying to survive out there, but then when they get 2 and 3, then I feel like we have to stop the bleeding because then the game is almost already finished. We have one less guy and it's going to be tough, so we have to find a way to not concede anymore, because conceding 4 goals is too much.”

On the lessons he can take from tonight:

“It's not fun to just chase the ball, but again it's better to just let it play around us and just kill the game off. It is not a good feeling to sit here now after conceding 4 goals, especially like, we have been really good in the first games and now, probably people out there are saying like, ‘OK, are we back like to conceding a lot of goals again’ but again, we are the people that can change it and we have shown that we can do it in the two first games, so we just have to get back on track there.”

On the new and exciting feeling around the Galaxy this season:

“I can't talk too much about the past because I haven't been here before now, but from what I have seen now, in the whole preseason, and what we have been doing up to now has been really good. So I'm really excited for what's to come.”

 

Vanney had his first choice defenders, keeper & midfield and yet we gave up 4 goals to a crappy team. That’s the whole story right there.

Yes we got a stupid red but other teams know how to keep the game within reach or even come back when down a man. Also the goals we gave up weren’t due to being outnumbered, they were due to our D playing chaotically. Players way out of position, unbalanced field coverage, bad recovery runs, incompetent steering of attacking players. I’ll repeat - both Yamane and Aude were terrible at shutting down COL wide attackers. They failed at basic tactical stuff. Im tired of the endless excuses for our lack of improvement on D.

Ugh…

 

I really didn’t understand Greg’s subbing Klauss for Nascimento after the red card. Klauss is exactly the type of striker you’d want on the pitch down a man if you hoped to snatch a win. If you were just trying to hang on for a draw then put in a defender or midfielder.

 

Highlight Time Folks


Okay despite going into the game thinking that it was a massive mistake to be starting Marco Reus in the Colorado altitude, I was otherwise fine with the lineup. Colorado came ready to attack us and I think we weren't prepared for that. I think Vanney thought that the Rapids were just going to bunker for the majority of the game same as the past few teams we've played at the start of this season. So when they were able to capitalize on a turnover and score against us, it was nice to see the team regain it's composer and get one back. But then just as we had just back on the road to a comeback we hit a pothole and get a flat tire that was going to require us to get towed because we didn't have a spare. The referee was allowing Colorado to foul us all night and only gave cards out to us.

Pec's first card was very weak in my opinion, but that second one was a textbook yellow card offense that the ref absolutely couldn't let it slide.Once we went down a man and they got goal number 2 it was over. Glesnes has been outstanding for multiple games and he finally got caught out and allowed a defender to beat him for goals. It didn't help that our goalkeeper was having a bad night as well. Paintsil left the game as well; and I am not having him and Pec hurt our attack. Reus was a total waste in this game. He had one good moment for a possible goal but was otherwise completely invisible. I like what I saw from Thommy when he came into the game despite it being well past lost by the time he entered. He needs to start next game and Reus needs to be relegated to the bench like Luis Suarez in Miami.

I just want to know was Paintsil hurt or because I don't recall hearing that he was suffering an injury of some kind. Also how bad is Garces at the moment. I want to rest Glesnes and Yoshida.

On to the Next Fight!!!!

 

Better than Micovic.

 

Low bar

 

MLS Winners and Losers: San Diego FC’s depth, Real Salt Lake’s youth movement & more

Loser: Gabriel Pec’s situational awareness
When the LA Galaxy’s lineup dropped on Saturday ahead of their meeting with the Colorado Rapids, I was quite skeptical. Greg Vanney pivoted away from the midfield group that worked so well in their demolition of Charlotte last week, bringing back Marco Reus as the No. 10 in a pretty standard 4-2-3-1.

But it actually worked.

The Galaxy were rolling through 60 minutes, outshooting Colorado 13 to four, fighting back from a goal down to equalize through Joao Klauss and looking in prime position to carry that momentum into more goals and a tough win on the road. From halftime until Klauss’ goal in the 56th minute, the Galaxy had eight shots to just four from the ‘Pids.

And then four minutes after the goal, star winger Gabriel Pec went in for an incredibly needless and misjudged tackle, picked up a second yellow card, and flipped that momentum on its head. LA took just three shots in the final 30 minutes and conceded three goals amidst a Rapids onslaught that turned the match into a drubbing.

What are we doing here? I guess good for Pec for tracking back? You like to see that from a DP winger. But the tackle… yeesh. For context, he’s at midfield, 50 yards from goal, with Jakob Glesnes closing down the angle and ready to step in if Rafael Navarro gets by. He’s on a yellow card. On the opposite flank, Joseph Paintsil had just come off injured 10 minutes before. It’s also just a horribly executed tackle.

This was a high-risk, low-reward situation from Pec, and it cost the Galaxy a result. This LA team needs Pec to be their talisman this year – and that wasn’t talisman behavior. - Ben Wright