CARSON, Calif. –The LA Galaxy fell 2-1 to FC Dallas in the first regular season match under new boss Curt Onalfo, but the young squad left StubHub Center encouraged after a relatively positive display on Saturday afternoon.
Maxi Urruti and Kellyn Acosta scored two second-half goals for the reigning Supporters’ Shield winners, while Giovani dos Santos notched the only tally for the home side who lost their first regular season home opener since 2014. The match was a mixed bag for Onalfo’s squad who dominated possession and had a fair number of scoring opportunities but were undone by sloppy defensive play on Dallas’ two goals.
After the match, Onalfo admitted that the performance was “kind of what he expected” from his new-look team.
“I think last week rattled us a little bit because we played a very good Portland team. Any time you play a good team you learn a little bit more about yourself. But we’ve added really good pieces. All the pieces that we added are quality, and you can see it. You can see it in today’s game,” Onalfo told reporters afterward. “Just getting it to gel and getting it to be fine-tuned, to turn those chances into goals and then not conceding the goals we give up.
“We can’t give up those kinds of goals and expect to be in every game especially when you’re playing a really good team. Very good starting point, a lot of optimism, we’ll just build on it.”
Throughout the preseason, Onalfo preached cohesion as he sought to mesh a variety of new arrivals into a roster significantly younger than Galaxy teams of old. With the team looking to gel, the 2016 regular season champions offered the perfect barometer as their counterattacking ability tested the Galaxy defense while Los Angeles’ powerful attack sought to pressure a formidable Dallas defense.
Although the result wasn’t what the Galaxy wanted, the team received a list of things to work on for the future.
“I think it’s still a work in progress. And if you watch the whole game, we controlled the game pretty good and gave up a dumb goal, we came back, and at 1-1 we had a lot of chances, but we don’t put them in. And then, from a throw in, they come back with a shot,” midfielder Jermaine Jones said. “I think you have to close them in from the throw in. But I still believe that the team is still a process. There was a step, as you see we could control the game, but you have to score, too.”
One of the team’s chief bright spots was French winger Romain Alessandrini, who showed well in his 86 minutes of action.
“He’s good at reading games. And he can find that spark between the lines. I would say that the last piece was missing to score a goal or the last ball for the chance to score. This is the part that we have to work on,” Jones said. “We lost today, and that’s a start we didn’t want, but I think we controlled the game really well, but at the end of the day you have to score goals to win games. So that’s the part we have to see and talk about when we come back on Monday.”
The Galaxy shift their focus now to next week’s match against an in-form Portland Timbers squad that obliterated Minnesota United in their first MLS contest on Friday. Despite being unable to start the season with a win, captain Jelle Van Damme believes that it's only upward from here for the Galaxy.
“We’ll learn from this and progress,” he said.
Adam Serrano is the LA Galaxy Insider. Read his blog atwww.LAGalaxy.com/Insiderand contact him atLAGalaxyInsider@Gmail.com.
