VANCOUVER, B.C. -- Ashley Cole made his 2017 debut for the LA Galaxy in a losing effort in the team's 4-2 defeat to Vancouver Whitecaps FC on Saturday.
The 36-year-old went 82 minutes at left back in his first match since suffering a left calf injury during the preseason. In his debut, Cole did not seem to miss a beat as he combined well in the attack and also held Vancouver's dynamic Alphonso Davies in check. Cole also made a last-ditch block to keep Vancouver off the board in the 78th-minute.
Despite the strong showing, head coach Curt Onalfo opted to remove Cole at the 82nd-minute mark to keep the outside back fresh for the week ahead.
"It's his first game playing close to 90 minutes. I figured it would give us a little more going forward in that position. I thought Ashley had a good game," Onalfo told reporters after the defeat. "He's making great progress. It was good to get him moving in the right direction. Both with the calf injury on turf at his age and tactically use Romney to help us get forward and create some chances."
If the Galaxy are going to turn their fortunes around for Friday's match against Montreal Impact, Cole believes that the team needs to be cleaner and play with greater "confidence" on and off the ball.
“I’ve been out for two weeks not playing and then two weeks training. Of course, you’re always disappointed to come off, but I said I felt good in the game and looking forward to playing the next game," Cole said. "It’s a tough place to come here, but we thought we had the confidence to go 2-1 up. We should have been good enough to see it out, but now we have to look forward to Friday.
“It was our mistakes [against Vancouver]. 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. We have to move a bit more for each other. We have to play with confidence.”
