CARSON, Calif. -- The last time the LA Galaxy took the field at BC Place, Homegrown forward Jose Villarreal made the whole world stand up and take notice.
Villarreal scored the tying goal in LA’s 2-2 draw with the Whitecaps last July with a stunning strike that drew praise from across the globe. On Saturday, Villarreal will return to the scene of his goal for the first time as he looks to help LA get back to their winning ways against Whitecaps FC.
In the club's final training session before departing to Vancouver, Villarreal admitted that he was plenty excited to return to BC Place.
"The goal I had was my first [professional] goal and I'll never forget that. I think after those couple of games, we made a push for the playoffs and that was important and it was fun. "I'm on a roll with these Canadian teams. Hopefully this game comes down good for us and we get a win," said Villarreal, who scored his second career MLS goal against Toronto FC. "You score a goal, you get a thousand more followers on Twitter, but that's not really important. People recognize you and it's good, but you have to keep the consistency going and I'm trying to keep that going by scoring more goals.
Although the match ended with Villarreal scoring a world class goal, he admits that he was a bit surprised that he was thrown into the match by LA head coach Bruce Arena, in what was just his second professional appearance.
"Bruce was like, 'you're going to come in," and I just thought 'wait, what? what is going on?' He put me and just said do your thing and I wasn't going to say no, so I just jumped in there. I got a chance and I put it away," said Villarreal. "That boosted [my confidence]. All my teammates were around me supporting me and for them to be there and have my back was nice."
