LOS ANGELES (Saturday, October 4, 2025) – The LA Galaxy scored early in the match against FC Dallas in the heat of the afternoon on Saturday, but ultimately fell 2-1. The go-ahead goal from Dallas was scored in first-half stoppage time. The team will return home to Dignity Health Sports Park for its final two home matches of the MLS Regular Season on Oct. 11 and Oct. 18.
LA Galaxy Against FC Dallas
Saturday’s match marked the 94th all-time meeting across all competitions between the LA Galaxy and FC Dallas, with LA leading the series 42-39-13. Against Dallas, the Galaxy hold a 36-35-13 record in league play, a 2-1-0 record in the U.S. Open Cup, and a 4-3-0 record in the MLS Cup Playoffs. In 43 all-time regular season matches played on the road against Dallas, the Galaxy hold a 9-26-8 record. The last time LA beat Dallas in Dallas was on Aug. 15, 2015, where the Galaxy completed a 2-1 come-from-behind victory with both goals scored by Robbie Keane.
Goal-Scoring Plays
LA – Diego Fagundez (Harbor Miller), 4th minute: Right outside the 18-yard box, Harbor Miller played a short pass to Diego Fagundez, who took a touch and smashed a shot to the upper right corner of the net for his 79th career goal in MLS Regular Season play.
DAL – Petar Musa, 35th minute: The ball was crossed into the box and a shot by Dallas’ Delgado was blocked by Zanka and deflected to the top of the six-yard box before Musa got a touch and shot into the net.
DAL – Patrickson Delgado, 45+3 minute: Dallas counterattacked on the left side and played a ball to Delgado who scored in the top left side of the goal.
Postgame Notes
- Four minutes into the match, Diego Fagundez scored his 79th career goal in an MLS Regular Season match. He enters the final two regular season games of the season at 79 goals and 79 assists.
- The average age of today’s starting lineup was 25.77 years old. This was the fourth time this season the Galaxy will field a starting lineup with an average age under 26.
- Harbor Miller completed the second assist of his MLS career today, bringing his goal contribution total to 1 goal and 2 assists.
- Joseph Paintsil was named team captain of the match for the first time on Oct. 4 in Dallas. Coming off his first career hat trick against Sporting Kansas City and a call up to the Ghana National Team for 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifying Matches, Paintsil captained the LA Galaxy in Dallas.
Next Game
The Galaxy will return home for the final two matches of the MLS Regular Season. On Saturday Oct. 11, LA will host a rematch against FC Dallas at 7:30 p.m. on Apple TV – MLS Season Pass. Then, the team will host Minnesota at 6 p.m. PT on Saturday Oct. 18 at Dignity Health Sports Park.
2025 MLS Regular Season
Goals by Half
1
2
F
LA Galaxy
1
0
1
FC Dallas
2
0
2
Scoring Summary:
LA: Fagundez, 4
DAL: Musa, 35
DAL: Delgado, 45+3
Misconduct Summary:
LA: Cuevas (caution), 33
Lineups:
Starting XI:
GK JT Marcinkowski, D John Nelson (D Julian Aude, 61), D Zanka, D, Chris Rindov, D Mauricio Cuevas (D Miki Yamane, 61),
M Harbor Miller (M Ruben Ramos Jr, 61) , M Edwin Cerrillo, M Elijah Wynder (M Tucker Lepley, 80)F Diego Fagundez, F Joseph Paintsil (c), F Matheus Nascimento (Miguel Berry, 46)
Substitutes:
GK Novak Mićović, D Eriq Zavaleta, M Isaiah Parente
Referee: Sergii Boiko
Assistant Referees: AR1: Adam Garner; AR2: Kevin Klinger
Fourth Official: Ricardo Montero Araya
VAR: Kevin Scott
AVAR: Tom Supple
Weather: Sunny, 85 degrees
Attendance: 11, 004
Additional Time at the Half: 5 minutes
Additional Time: 5 minutes
Total Added Time: 10 minutes
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH GREG VANNEY
On why the Galaxy haven’t been able to hold a lead:
“The issue is that the game is 90 minutes, and inside of the game, there are multiple plays that equate into kind of key plays inside of the game. We've talked a lot this year about defending in the box, crosses being more connected to men, being able to be physical with them. In the first goal, we get up 1-0, the first goal, it's a crossing situation. We lose a mark in the back. They cross to the back post, and they are able to put it right back into the mix, I think. And it becomes, again, a situation where in some of these key plays in the course of the game -- we do some of them through the course of the game, we do manage the situation and that keeps us in games, of course. But then there's just too many moments that we have breakdowns. Sometimes you can say it's a mentality. I think the second goal is a mentality breakdown. I think the first goal is an assignment breakdown. You can go through the different games and you can probably attach different things to each goal. But the second goal, possibly a foul on Joe. Guy leaves his leg in as Joe is turning back. But even when the ball turns over, we have enough numbers behind the ball to deal with the play. Zanka needs to release because there's nothing for him to keep dropping back for. He needs to release quicker and harder and not allow Delgado to get off a clean shot. There's no reason for us to be slow in doing so. If we were outnumbered, I get it. If there's a space there that we have to manage, I get it. But that's not the case. We had enough numbers. The guy on the inside and outside of them were both dealt with. We need to release. So again, it's a situation that it arises a little bit out of nothing. We think we have possession and all of a sudden we don't have possession, and for me, it's a mentality that we have to switch on and we have to make the appropriate decision quickly in that and be appropriately aggressive in the situation. And we were not. We were passive, and we allow -- yeah, he hits a great shot. So kudos to him, but he shouldn't have that time and space to be able to line that up and get a free look in my opinion because we have numbers behind the ball to deal with it. I think sometimes we find some ways, again, outside of that, I don't think they had a lot. Inside of that, they were over pressing a lot in the first half where they were getting man-to-man, and our first nine has to be a release valve for us. And we didn't hold one ball that we played to our nine in the first half. So when a team goes man-to-man and our goalkeeper is looking up high we have to be able to -- as McGee did the good job in the second half of battling through situations. He still lost a few, but battling through situations. Because all it takes is for us to control a couple or a few of hose, get on the other side of them, and then they start to think twice about overpressing us. And the problem is we lost every single one. So there was no penalty for them to overpress us. And then what ends up happening is, right, we end up conceding more possessions in our defensive half of the field and now you have to manage more situations defensively. So it's a combination of things, but inside of it, again, they don't create many chances. But the few semi-chances they had created, we helped turn them into goals in my opinion.”
On what makes it so hard to play in Dallas:
“I think a few of the times that we've come here, they have been middle of the day games. It doesn't mean a whole lot other than the game goes into the conditions are different, it's hot, there's some humidity involved, whatever, and especially in the summer, it's brutal. But a day like today, it's still warm, and it's an important game. It's a playoff-implication game, especially for the other team. And to play these games in Dallas at 3 o'clock in the afternoon just doesn't make sense to me because we want these games to be high intensity, high speed for the fans, for everybody. We don't want it to be walking soccer, like it was part of the time out there. So I just don't understand it. I know maybe there's television evidently involved, but I just don't understand it. Even for the television, for everyone, you want a game at this time of year. And this is a special part of this time of year. You want high intensity. You want people sprinting as much as possible. You want challenges. You want the game to be fast, and you want it to be -- you have intensity, and these games in Dallas, when you come in in the middle of the day or it's in the summer even in the evenings, it's just slow pace. And I felt like we haven't managed the conditions well. Today we lost too many balls where I felt like we weren't moving quick enough to support each other and some of the man-on-man pressing situations where we were not showing up, we weren't sharp, we were missing passes. As I said at the top, we were losing some duels. But I think in order to break, and I thought all through, as an example, in Leagues Cup, a lot of the Mexican league teams would overpress us in man-to-man, and we were fantastic in those situations. But game was moving fast. Players were moving fast. Conditions were evening. Today, I just felt like we were too slow sometimes to really hurt them for extending their pressure the way they did. So does that equate to every time? I don't know. I think it adds a little something to do with it but maybe not every single time. Again, I felt like today was a day with better execution, I think we can get a result and we didn't execute on both ends as clean as we needed to.”
On what Diego means to this team during this difficult period:
"He's been one of our most important players for the whole season because he's out there, shows up every single day. He's ready to play every single game. I don't know if he was unavailable even one game this year. You know, if we needed him to play in a pivot, which is what I felt got us moving in the right direction midseason a little bit. When he and Eddie were in there with Marco, I felt like we started to turn the momentum of our season around more. And that's not his traditional position when he has to play wide because we are missing one of the two wingers or we have to do something different with him, he gives us that. But for me, he's the consummate team guy. He's a connector in the locker room. He understands our league and he understands players from different places. So he's able to connect with everybody. Tactically, he's just very aware. He know what is we're trying to do out there and he understands the solutions inside of the game. And so, again, he's been a huge piece for us because he's always available and he's so versatile in being able to put him into different areas, and again, off the field, he brings a presence that few others do inside of our group.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER DIEGO FAGUNDEZ
On what he sees that's leading to the team not being able to be successful:
"I don't know if I even have answers for that. Right now, I think we're coming in high and scoring first, and before half them scoring two goals is just not what we want. Of course they get a little bit of momentum going. But I think just today, I think it was a game that we just needed to dominate. I thought we were creating a lot of chances. In the second half, I don't think they really created much, but we weren't good enough to finish our chances, either.”
On what he saw in the buildup to the second goal:
“To be honest I don't remember it completely, but from what I kind of remember, we thought it was a foul but referees and players don't call them. I just feel like we need to step a little bit more and not allow them to shoot that way. But like I said, I need to re-watch it, and I can't -- I'm not going to just say something that I don't exactly remember. But I just think as a team we need to do better on stepping forward and not allowing people to take two, three steps and take shots from outside our box. But that's soccer for you. That's kind of where we are this year, and it's just tough. I think when you start so well, and you think you have the momentum going, and then you get punished, it's a hard pill to swallow.”
On what he’ll take away from this match to play FC Dallas at home next week:
“I think overall, I think we're a better team. I think at the end of the day, we need to show that. Like I said, I think we created enough chances. We just need to be better executing stuff. If you rewatch the whole game, I think in the first half, we could probably finish a couple more, and second half, I think we dominated a little bit. We were creating a couple chances. But at the end of the day, it's the team that scores more goals is going to win the game. So for us, we just need to do that, and now we turn it around and play them again and we need to make sure that we play aggressive. We're at home, and we need to win these last two home games just to leave the year with something positive.”
