VANCOUVER, B.C. – The LA Galaxy had only themselves to blame after a second half collapse saw them drop a 4-2 defeat to Vancouver Whitecaps FC at BC Place on Saturday.
The Galaxy held a 2-1 lead in the first half off a Romain Alessandrini brace, but the lead fell to pieces in the final 45 minutes on a series of individual mistakes that doomed Curt Onalfo’s men. In a nightmare second half for the Galaxy, Vancouver scored three unanswered goals to give Los Angeles their third defeat of the early season.
“We gifted the second goal, and we just gave them the third,” Onalfo told reporters after the defeat. “We literally just passed the ball to their player. It’s simple as that. Good teams are going to punish you when you make errors like that.”
Alessandrini’s two goals in the first half had the Galaxy in the catbird seat even after a Clement Diop error gave Vancouver the lead to start the match. However, things all turned around for the Whitecaps in the second half when Fredy Montero entered.
Within a two-minute span from the 66 to the 67th minute, Montero and Galaxy errors proved decisive as the Whitecaps striker scored once and helped set up Matias Laba on the first of two goals to put Vancouver up a goal.
Like his head coach, captain Jelle Van Damme did not mince words after the game, admitting that the team’s performance was subpar.
“We fd up pretty bad today. It’s all personal mistakes. This cannot happen,” Van Damme told LAGalaxy.com. “We played an away game, and at the end, we didn’t play well, and we were leading. Until the second goal of [theirs], we had everything under control. We fd up in five minutes. … It was just bad.”
For the Galaxy’s veterans, it’s time for the team to look at themselves in the mirror and prepare for next week’s clash with Montreal Impact at StubHub Center.
“It was our mistakes. We were giving the ball away in areas, and I think that we just need to play more. We have the technical players to do so,” Cole said. “We have to move a bit more for each other. We have to play with confidence.”
Added Jermaine Jones, “We have to step it up. I don’t say names, but inside, we have to talk together, and we understand what we have to make better.”
Adam Serrano is the LA Galaxy Insider. Read his blog at www.LAGalaxy.com/Insider and contact him at LAGalaxyInsider@Gmail.com.
