BAYAMÓN -- Rafael Garcia and the rest of the rest of the LA Galaxy attack created plenty of chances on Wednesday night, but LA were unable to find the back of the net, settling for a scoreless draw on Wednesday.
The rookie midfielder was by far the most active member of the Galaxy throughout the match as he completed an 55 of his 62 pass attempts on Wednesday. One of his passes helped create one of the Galaxy's best scoring chances of the night in the 49th minute when he sent a ball over the top to Kenney Walker, whose shot from close distance was saved by Puerto Rico goalkeeper Richard Martin. The 23-year-old midfielder had a chance of his own in stoppage time, but fired the shot just over the crossbar.
With a strong performance against the Islanders, Garcia is likely to be in contention for a starting position during LA's next CONCACAF Champions League match on October 25th against Isidro Metapán.
Below are Garcia's thoughts on the match...
GARCIA: “It’s a hard environment and I think that may have had something to do with it, but the fact of the matter is that we didn’t show as much as we should of. For whatever reason, it wasn’t clicking, we got a second wind when Landon, Juni and Marcelo came in and we created a few more opportunities, but it was a tough night for our offense.”
(On Brian Perk's performance)
GARCIA: “Outstanding. A shutout on the road, it doesn’t get any better than that, I thought his leadership was second to none, he organizes well so we couldn’t be happier.”
(On the implications for group play…)
GARCIA: “We knew that with a win today, we could have maybe clinched and now we just have to go to El Salvador and get a result there. We know that it’s not going to be easy, the environment is obviously tough there, but we just have to be ready for it.”
(On whether Arena will keep the young group together in El Salvador…)
GARCIA: “Those decisions are up to them. I’m sure that the guys that get called up are more than happy to get out there and give it their best, but like I said, whatever that they decide, we support it 100%.”
