WASHINGTON, D.C. (Saturday, May 20, 2023) – Playing the second of three road matches across all competitions in the span of seven days, the LA Galaxy fell 3-0 on the road to D.C. United at Audi Field on Saturday night.
LA Galaxy Against D.C. United
Saturday’s match marked the 51st meeting across all competitions between LA and D.C. United, with the Galaxy leading the all-time series 21-18-12. Against D.C., LA holds a 20-16-11 record in league play, an 0-2-0 record in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs and a 1-0-1 record in the Concacaf Champions’ Cup. In 25 all-time regular-season matches played on the road against D.C. United, the Galaxy hold a 9-11-5 record.
Packed Schedule
Saturday’s match against D.C. United marked the fifth match in the span of 15 days for the LA Galaxy; an average of a match played every three days. LA played the second of three road matches across all competitions in the span of seven days, with the Galaxy next traveling to face LAFC at BMO Stadium on Tuesday, May 23. During the month of May, the LA Galaxy will have played eight games across all competitions in the span of 26 days, an average of a game played every 3.3 days. In the Galaxy’s last seven matches played across all competitions dating back to April 22, the Galaxy hold a 3-4-0 record (8 GF, 12 GA).
Goal-Scoring Plays
DCU– Christian Benteke, 71st minute – Christian Benteke pounced on a loose ball inside the penalty area and finished his shot at the near post.
DCU– Cristian Dajome (Christian Benteke), 73rd minute – Christian Benteke slipped a pass in behind the Galaxy defense to Cristian Dajome, who fired his shot into the lower right corner of the goal.
DCU– Mateusz Klich, 80th minute – Jonathan Bond parried aside a low, driven cross inside the box, but Mateusz Klich was first to the rebound and drilled his shot in from close range.
Postgame Notes
- Saturday’s match marked the 51st meeting across all competitions between LA and D.C. United, with the Galaxy leading the all-time series 21-18-12.
- Against D.C., LA holds a 20-16-11 record in league play, an 0-2-0 record in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs and a 1-0-1 record in the Concacaf Champions’ Cup.
- In 25 all-time regular-season matches played on the road against D.C. United, the Galaxy hold a 9-11-5 record.
- In the Galaxy’s last seven matches played across all competitions dating back to April 22, the Galaxy hold a 3-4-0 record (8 GF, 12 GA).
- Saturday’s match against D.C. United marked the fifth match in the span of 15 days for the LA Galaxy; an average of a match played every three days.
- During the month of May, the Galaxy will have played eight games across all competitions in the span of 26 days, an average of a game played every 3.3 days.
- In seven matches played on the road during the 2023 campaign, the Galaxy hold a record of 0-5-2 (1 GF, 13 GA).
- Gastón Brugman completed 72 of 78 passes (92.3% pass accuracy), recorded eight possessions won and tallied two interceptions.
- Mark Delgado finished the match with a game-high three chances created, completed 52 passes and ended the match tied for a team-high eight possessions won.
- Julián Aude recorded a game-high four interceptions, won two tackles and won possession eight times.
- Jalen Neal completed 38 of 39 passes (97.4% pass accuracy), won two tackles and recorded three clearances.
- Calegari won a team-high eight duels, was fouled five times and won two tackles.
- In 14 career regular-season matches managed against D.C. United as head coach of Toronto FC and the LA Galaxy dating back to 2015, LA Galaxy Head Coach and Sporting Director Greg Vanney holds a record of 4-3-7.
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Next Game
*Next up, the LA Galaxy continue their 2023 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup campaign by squaring off against LAFC in the Round of 16 at BMO Stadium on Tuesday, May 23. The match on May 23 kicks off at 7:30 p.m. PT and will be broadcasted live on CBS Sports Golazo Network.
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2023 MLS Regular Season
LA Galaxy (2-8-3, 9pts) at D.C. United (5-5-4, 19pts)*
May 20, 2023 – Audi Field (Washington, D.C.)
Goals by Half 1 2 F
LA Galaxy 0 0 0
D.C. United 0 3 3
Scoring Summary:
DCU: Benteke, 71
DCU: Dajome (Benteke), 73
DCU: Klich, 80
Misconduct Summary:
LA: Rodríguez (caution), 45+1
DCU: Pines (caution), 65
LA: Delgado (caution), 87
DCU: Dajome (caution), 90
Lineups:
LA: GK Jonathan Bond; D Calegari, D Martín Cáceres, D Jalen Neal (Eriq Zavaleta, 83), D Julián Aude (Daniel Aguirre, 84); M Mark Delgado, M Gastón Brugman (Uri Rosell, 84), M Riqui Puig, M Tyler Boyd (Raheem Edwards, 63), M Memo Rodríguez (Dejan Joveljić, 75); F Javier “Chicharito” Hernández ©
Substitutes Not Used: GK Jonathan Klinsmann; D Kelvin Leerdam; M Efraín Álvarez, M Gino Vivi
TOTAL SHOTS: 11 (Three players tied, 2); SHOTS ON GOAL: 6 (Six players tied, 1); FOULS: 13 (Memo Rodríguez, 3); OFFSIDES: 5; CORNER KICKS: 1; SAVES: 2
DCU: GK Tyler Miler; D Derrick Williams, D Donovan Pines, D Gaoussou Samake (Jacob Greene, 82); D Russell Canouse © (Brendan Hines-Ike, 90), M Chris Durkin, M Lewis O’Brien, M Ted Ku-DiPietro (Cristian Dajome, 68), M Mateusz Klich (Yamil Asad, 89), M Victor Palsson; F Christian Benteke (Kristian Fletcher, 89)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Alex Bono, GK Luis Zamudio; D Matai Akinmboni, F Erik Hurtado
TOTAL SHOTS: 13 (Christian Benteke, 5); SHOTS ON GOAL: 5 (Mateusz Klich, 2); FOULS: 16 (Russell Canouse, 4); OFFSIDES: 2; CORNER KICKS: 2; SAVES: 6
Referee: Fotis Bazakos
Assistant Referees: Brian Poeschel, Ben Pilgrim
Fourth Official: Marcos DeOliveira
VAR: Younes Marrakchi
Weather: Rain, 78 degrees
Attendance: 19,215
All statistics contained in this box score are unofficial
LA GALAXY POSTGAME QUOTES
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH AND SPORTING DIRECTOR GREG VANNEY
On the game being a stalemate up until the 70th minute, then the goal happening and the next two, and what happened with the team:
“I think the game is relatively tight for 70 minutes. Not a whole lot really clear going on, on either side. Each team is getting into each other’s half a bit, but nothing extraordinarily dangerous. And then, we’re in a possession, we roll it back to Bondy [Jonathan Bond], we overplay it, all those times we’ve just talked about making business decisions and hitting the ball long and playing a different situation, and Bondy got stuck in possession. And, then it’s 1-0. And at 1-0 with about 18 minutes to go, you’re starting to process now how you’re going to get yourself back into the game or some position, or equalize at least. So, at that point… it’s also the second of a longer road trip. At that point, we ended up going to a second forward, just trying to stir up and create some more chances. Because we were… I don’t know if I’d say semi-dangerous, but we were… had some moments that I looked like they might be promising, but nothing with fire really at the end of it. So, getting a second forward on because we needed to get a goal back was the thought and trying to give us some window of time to do that. And then the second one comes, and obviously the third one comes off of that. And that’s when you’re starting to open yourself up a little bit more and chase the game. And, we knew with the way they play, is they spread you out and invite you in, and if you come, they play long balls into [Christian] Benteke, who is a handful, and he’s a big, strong guy, so, you’re a little bit… you want to go press, but you know if you press, they’re just going to play off of him and guys are going to be running, and you’re going to be dealing with things in your half. So, I thought we did a pretty good job of just sealing off that. We allowed them to have some possession out in front of us, but we didn’t give up a lot in between our lines and a lot playing off of him. And, so, after 70 minutes, defensively, I thought we were pretty sound, given what they want to do, which is whip crosses into him, and still play balls off of him. But, again, our capacity then was, can we hurt them on the other side? Get ahead of the game? Get in the front? And, if not, can we see this out at 0-0? And we weren’t able to do that tonight.”
On what needs to change on the road to be more dangerous on the attack and score goals:
“I think, you know, everything in the final action needs to be a little more quicker, more dynamic. Play more out of our left side. The vast majority of our opportunities come from the right side. We need to get some attacking transition into our game a little bit. Again, that becomes recovering balls between lines, being able to build some speed into the attacking transition. And, given… tonight, was going to be… there was going to be a few moments, but tonight, it’s hard to play in transition when they play direct. You don’t win a lot of balls in short spots. You win a lot of balls off of long balls, second balls, things like that. Tonight is not a night that’s going to have a ton of attack from transition. But, that’s one of the ways that we’ve got to increase our goal output, is getting more attack and transition into our game. And then there has got to be more balance between our left side and right side. And then we have to have more of a connection just in the final action. What crosses we choose to play, where we choose to play them, our runners, things like that. Because we just have very small windows to finish. We don’t have big windows and big spaces to finish. We have to be so precise. And that’s difficult. That’s difficult. Because, again, in our possessions and the length of time sometimes, we don’t have a ton of speed on the top end that really opens teams up and creates bigger space between lines. So we have to be so precise. And we haven’t been sharp and precise. Especially on the road.”
On how he helps the players, as a coach, to not have moments in games where his side tries to force things and it’s unexpected:
“Ultimately, the guys have the green light and know when to take risk and not to take risk. And then they have to make decisions inside of the game. That’s the beauty of this game. Is, ultimately, when the whistle blows, it’s on players to make those decisions inside of the game. We try to set up… again, I give them the green light, as I said to you earlier, to make those business decisions. If you need to kick it in the stands, kick it in the stands, if it’s in our area. These are just… these are, I don’t put it on them, but I just say in general, when the game starts, as players, we get to make the decisions and decide some of those moments. And that’s the beauty of the sport in many ways. And, so, we have to be smarter. Because in each game… last game, we should have fouled at half field. And we didn’t. And that leads to a goal. And this game, we should clear a ball. We don’t. And it’s these little gaps that are creating… they’re pushing against us a little bit because teams are executing in those moments and we’re not scoring enough goals to make a difference of giving up one here or there. At least not on the road. In the last couple home games, we’ve done a nice job. But on the road, in these last two games, we haven’t made enough margin for that on the attacking side.”
LA GALAXY GOALKEEPER JONATHAN BOND
On what happened on the first goal D.C. United scored:
“As I was just saying in the locker room, I take full responsibility for us losing the game. We actually played well, I thought, maybe without creating too much, but we defended really well. We dealt with [Christian] Benteke really well when the game was in the balance, and then it obviously comes down to not making mistakes. One hundred percent it was down to me that we ended up giving up that first goal up. And then everything from there wasn’t that great either. Yeah, a difficult one. It’s difficult to just say sorry. It feels very weak. It’s just got to be a case of it’s not going to happen again. I just have to guarantee everyone that it’s not going to happen again. The other thing is that it’s just not good timing. At the moment, we need our experienced players, like myself, to be consistent when we’re going through a difficult moment. Today, obviously I could have done a lot better.”
On the confidence of the defense:
“I don’t feel like our confidence was too bad, honestly. Obviously, when they get the first goal almost in the manner that they did… If it was from a set piece or whatever, but when it’s kind of a mistake like what I did it does kill our morale a little bit within the game. It is difficult to recover with only 15, 20 minutes left or whenever it was. Unfortunately, as a goalkeeper you just cannot do that. I wasn’t really right all game, all second half when the ball was played back to me at my feet. It was kind of an early warning sign within 10 seconds after halftime. So probably should have accepted that and maybe gone a little bit less risk taking.”
On the team’s mood heading in the next match against LAFC in the Round of 16 of the U.S. Open Cup:
“Obviously, we’re speaking 20 minutes, a half an hour or whatever it is after the game. Everyone is very down, but that’s the case with any loss to be honest. We’ve had a good reaction up until this road trip. We obviously got through in the Open Cup and then followed that up with a win at home. These two games were always going to be difficult with the amount of travel and obviously the lack of recovery in between. But it’s kind of back to LA it kind of gives us a good opportunity to put the momentum in our favor. There’s obviously pros and cons to maybe having a clear week leading into a weekend game, but there’s also obviously a pro having a game so quickly on [Tuesday] to put it right and a win against LAFC can really kick start something for us I think.”LA GALAXY DEFENDER RAHEEM EDWARDS
On if he thinks the team can turn it around for the remainder of the season: “Definitely. Listen, by no stretch of the imagination are we happy or okay. Obviously, we’re in a difficult situation, but I think being in a difficult situation… The first thing is having belief. If you don’t have belief then we’re going to continue to stay in this stretch, but I think the guys, and me included, have full belief that we can turn this around. We’re not even halfway though the season, so just like having a bad start to the season we can [close out] well during the season. I don’t think the season by any stretch of the imagination is over, but guys are not hanging their heads too low. We’ve got a game Tuesday. Guys just want to get back home and get rested and after go again Tuesday.”
On whether or not he agrees with Greg Vanney on not trying to force things:“One hundred percent. I think sometimes, offensively and defensively, we rush things when we could hold on a second and play in possession or sometimes we take a 30-yard shot or just a bad giveaway. I just think we don’t have enough patience, but listen; we’re trying to build off of what we can improve and you have to look internally and just keep grinding because as I told you before… Once you hold your head low and you give up it’s over.”
