CARSON, Calif. – The LA Galaxy opened their third week of training with a two-hour session under crystal clear skies at The Home Depot Center. With the intensity and structure of the drills increasing throughout last week’s sessions, Bruce Arena and his staff upped the pace ever more for this morning’s session on the Track and Field Stadium.
With the exception of Dan Keat, who is continuing his recovery from a heel injury, the entire squad was on the field today, taking part in an extended warmup to open the session, followed by two separate 8v3 sessions— as opposed to the typical 6v2 that was customary last year— to get the guys' legs moving and loose.
The squad then split into two groups, with the forwards and midfielders going to one end of the field, with the defending players making their way to the other end. While the defenders spent most of their time working on shape and moving in unison to one another, the attacking players worked exclusively on crossing and finishing. The club’s three goalkeepers faced a steady barrage of shots as players whipped in crosses from both flanks in four-man attacking drills, before breaking down into smaller, two-man attacking movements.
The session ended with the squad divided up into two teams of 11 field players for a series of short, half field, 7v7 games. Each of the 11 players had to play at least three of the five games, with the extra eight players (four from each side) working out on the opposite side of the field with the club’s strength and conditioning coach Ben Yauss. Juan Pablo Angel scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal, helping his team, which featured Landon Donovan, Chad Barrett, Miguel Lopez, Omar Gonzalez, Leonardo, A.J. DeLaGarza, Frankie Hejduk, Michael Stephens, Juninho and Todd Dunivant, come back from a 2-1 deficit after the third of five games to claim a 4-2 win.
The team will be back on the field for a preseason game on Tuesday against Portland before returning to training on Wednesday morning ahead of Thursday’s preseason game against the San Jose Earthquakes. Stay tuned to lagalaxy.com later in the day for updates from that preseason match.
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