When you allowed 67 goals last season, which averages out to nearly two per game, any time you keep an opponent below that is a positive.
That’s a good way to describe the Galaxy heading into their second game of the season.
The Galaxy held Inter Miami CF off the scoreboard until Lionel Messi scored in the second minute of stoppage time, when the Galaxy was down to 10 men after Mark Delgado’s second yellow card.
“Defensively, I felt like we were really compact,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “When we were high, we were together, when we were low, we were together … we were really spread apart and I think that’s going to be really important for this team, for the whole season.”
The Galaxy (0-0-1, 1 point) will face the San Jose Earthquakes (0-1) on Saturday in the 99th edition of the Cali Clasico (7:30 p.m., Apple TV+)
A lot of questions coming in were focused on the center back pairing of 35-year-old Maya Yoshida and 36-year-old Martin Caceres. The duo brings more than their share of experience.
“For me the center back position, you only really have to be athletic when you make bad decisions or you don’t read situations, or when things break down around you and you need to make covering plays,” Vanney said. “When you have nearly 80 years of experience, you don’t get many bad decisions from these guys.
“You get a lot of good decisions, recognition of scenarios, seeing things happen before they happen so they’re able to cut them off. If the group in front of them is doing a good job of keeping us connected, then they don’t get exposed in big spaces. So, that’s why I say our connections is really important to help those guys out. Both of them is probably a little more athletic than they get credit for at their age, but also we don’t want to get them in position where they’re chasing guys all over the field, so we have to remain compact.”
That helped against Inter Miami, but San Jose expects to pose a different…
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