July 14, 2022 – Major League Soccer (MLS) – LA Galaxy News Release
LOS ANGELES – Playing their third game in the span of 10 days, the LA Galaxy sustained a 3-2 loss to the San Jose Earthquakes before 18,453 fans at Dignity Health Sports Park on Wednesday night. Dejan Joveljić tallied two second-half goals, while Kévin Cabral and Douglas Costa each notched their first assists of the 2022 MLS Regular Season.
LA Galaxy Against San Jose Earthquakes
Wednesday’s match marked the 94th edition of the California Clásico between the LA Galaxy and San Jose Earthquakes across all competitions, with the Galaxy leading the all-time series 43-33-18. Against the Earthquakes, LA holds a 34-28-16 record in league play, a 4-1-1 record in the U.S. Open Cup and a 5-4-1 record during the MLS Cup Playoffs.
Dejan Joveljić In Goal-Scoring Form
With his two-goal performance against San Jose, Joveljić has tallied seven goals in his last six regular-season games played dating back to May 29, which ranks tied with Nashville SC’s Hany Mukhtar for the most goals in MLS during that span. Amongst players that have played a minimum of 500 minutes in league play, Joveljić leads MLS with 1.38 goals scored per 90 minutes played. In 17 regular-season appearances (4 starts), Joveljić leads the Galaxy and ranks tied for ninth in the league with eight goals scored in 522 minutes played.
Goal-Scoring Plays.
SJ – Cristian Espinoza (Penalty Kick), 13th minute: After a penalty was awarded to San Jose, Cristian Espinoza placed his shot into the lower right corner of the net.
SJ – Jeremy Ebobisse (Jamiro Monteiro), 14th minute: Inside the penally area, Jamiro Monteiro played the ball out wide to Jeremy Ebobisse, whose shot from the right side of the box was curled into the far corner of the goal.
SJ – Marcos Lopez (Benjamin Kikanovic), 40th minute: In transition, Benjamin Kikanovic found the run of Marcos Lopez, who finished from close range.
LA – Dejan Joveljić (Kévin Cabral, Efraín Álvarez), 47th minute: After being released down the left wing by Efraín Álvarez, Kévin Cabral dribbled down the left side of the box. Cabral cut onto his right foot and slid a pass to Dejan Joveljić, whose shot from the middle of the penalty area found the top corner of the net.
LA – Dejan Joveljić (Douglas Costa), 88th minute: Douglas Costa delivered a long ball into the box that Dejan Joveljić chested down. Joveljić dribbled past two players before curling a left-footed strike into the top left corner of the net.
Postgame Notes
Wednesday’s match marked the 94th edition of the California Clásico between the LA Galaxy and San Jose Earthquakes across all competitions, with the Galaxy leading the all-time series 43-33-18.
Against the Earthquakes, LA holds a 34-28-16 record in league play, a 4-1-1 record in the U.S. Open Cup and a 5-4-1 record during the MLS Cup Playoffs.
LA has scored multiple goals in the second halves of their last four matches played in MLS regular-season play dating back to June 29.
Dejan Joveljić recorded his fourth career two-goal performance across all competitions for the Galaxy.
Joveljić has tallied seven goals in his last six games played dating back to May 29, which ranks tied with Nashville SC’s Hany Mukhtar for the most goals in MLS during that span.
In 21 matches played (7 starts) across all competitions during the 2022 campaign, Joveljić has tallied 11 goals and two assists.
Amongst players that have played a minimum of 500 minutes in league play, Joveljić leads MLS with 1.38 goals scored per 90 minutes played.
Joveljić’s eight goals scored at home ranks second in MLS this season behind only NYCFC’s Valentin Castellanos (10).
Joveljić is the fifth player in LA Galaxy history score in five consecutive home matches in league play, joining Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Robbie Keane, Carlos Ruiz, Welton and Eduardo Hurtado.
In four starts in league play this season, Joveljić has registered three goals.
Douglas Costa logged his first career assist as a member of the Galaxy.
Kévin Cabral notched his first assist of the 2022 campaign.
Cabral finished the match with a game-high four chances created in 45 minutes played as a second-half substitute.
Efraín Álvarez registered an assist for a third consecutive appearance dating back to July 4.
Sacha Kljestan appeared in his 323rd career MLS regular-season match, which ranks tied for 34th in MLS history with Brian Mullan.
Grandsir made his 57th consecutive appearance for the Galaxy across all competitions dating back to April 18, 2021.
Julián Araujo started and played 90 minutes in his 91st career appearance (81 starts) across all competitions for the Galaxy.
Next Game
Up next, the LA Galaxy travel to face the Colorado Rapids at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on Saturday, July 16. The July 16 match kicks off at 6:00 p.m. PT and features a regional television broadcast on Spectrum SportsNet and will be streamed live on LAGalaxy.com.
LA Galaxy (8-8-3, 27pts) vs. San Jose Earthquakes (5-7-7, 22pts)
July 13, 2022 – Dignity Health Sports Park (Los Angeles)
Goals by Half 1 2 F
LA Galaxy 0 2 2
San Jose Earthquakes 3 0 3
Scoring Summary:
SJ: Espinoza (penalty kick), 13
SJ: Ebobisse (Monteiro), 14
SJ: Lopez (Kikanovic), 40
LA: Joveljić (Cabral, Álvarez), 48
LA: Joveljić (Costa), 88
Misconduct Summary:
LA: Grandsir (caution), 33
SJ: Lopez (caution), 41
Lineups:
LA: GK Jonathan Bond; D Julián Araujo, D Séga Coulibaly, D Derrick Williams, D Raheem Edwards (Chase Gasper, 45); M Rayan Raveloson, M Daniel Aguirre (Sacha Kljestan, 69), M Samuel Grandsir (Douglas Costa, 45), M Víctor Vázquez © (Kévin Cabral, 45), M Efraín Álvarez; F Dejan Joveljić
Substitutes Not Used: GK Jonathan Klinsmann; D Nick DePuy, D Kelvin Leerdam, D Eriq Zavaleta; F Preston Judd
TOTAL SHOTS: 25 (Efraín Álvarez, 6); SHOTS ON GOAL: 10 (Efraín Álvarez, 3); FOULS: 13 (Samuel Grandsir, 4) OFFSIDES: 1; CORNER KICKS: 11; SAVES: 1
SJ: GK JT Marcinkowski; D Paul Marie (Tommy Thompson, 77), D Nathan, D Tanner Beason, D Marcos Lopez; M Eric Remedi (Jan Gregus, 63), M Jackson Yueill ©, M Jamiro Monteiro; F Cristian Espinoza (Cade Cowell, 63), F Jeremy Ebobisse (Jack Skahan, 90), F Benji Kikanovic (Shea Salinas, 62)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Matt Bersano; D Oskar Agren, M Niko Tsarkiris, F Ousseni Bouda,
TOTAL SHOTS: 11 (Three players tied, 2); SHOTS ON GOAL: 4 (Four players tied, 1); FOULS: 4 (Marcos Lopez, 2) OFFSIDES: 1; CORNER KICKS: 8; SAVES: 8
Referee: Allen Chapman
Assistant Referees: Frank Anderson, Chris Elliott
Fourth Official: Nima Saghafi
VAR: Kevin Terry Jr.
Weather: Clear, 74 degrees
Attendance: 18,453
All statistics contained in this box score are unofficial
Postgame Media Assets
LA Galaxy postgame soundbites from media availability and match photos can be found below.
SOUNDBYTES: https://mlssoccer.box.com/s/xulbxz6f6mnm4qrjfeg45onewehzxn2h
LA Galaxy Head Coach Greg Vanney (English)
LA Galaxy Midfielder Víctor Vázquez (English and Spanish)
LA Galaxy Defender Derrick Williams (English)
*Please credit LA Galaxy for any use
PHOTOS: https://mlssoccer.box.com/s/xulbxz6f6mnm4qrjfeg45onewehzxn2h
*Please credit LA Galaxy for any use
LA GALAXY POSTGAME QUOTES
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH GREG VANNEY
On his thoughts on each half:
“The first half was embarrassing in terms of… I actually thought we got off to a decent start for the first 10 minutes or so. And then, we just, we commit a silly penalty kick. It’s just clumsy. And then, I think off the kickoff, in less than 60 seconds, we give a second one back, which is the second game in a row we’ve given up two goals back to back in less than two minutes. Which is… it’s unacceptable. It’s embarrassing. And it digs a hole for ourselves that makes the game very difficult. And that was the first half. Again on some of the defending stuff, we needed a little bit of our midfielders support to our forwards. Our midfielders were sitting too low and too deep. And our forwards, who needed to step out and give pressure, didn’t get the support from our midfielders. And then our two forwards were unable to give pressure when chasing it around, so we don’t dictate the game really well. We changed that at halftime, and certainly we dictated the game much better. The second half response was excellent. I mean, the part of that that we have to take away from it, is that when we play with the right intensity, we play with the right intention. We move together. We create enough chances in this game to get ourselves back into it. And to see something out of it. And, that’s a positive. And we get to build off of that. But, again, I said this to the guys… there’s too many of these discussions, especially at home, when we are talking about getting ourselves behind, and then we have a great response, but the response hasn’t been good enough. We’re seeking just that reliability from each guy as we step onto the field in place. Every game. Because that’s what professionalism is about. And we need that. We can’t just make mistakes. It’s not acceptable anymore. Mistakes are putting the team in a hole, and making it very difficult to get ourselves out.”
On the space in behind the Galaxy back line that was exploited easily:
“Yeah, it’s an issue when you don’t get pressure to the ball and guys survive in between your lines and get to face forward. Then your back line is vulnerable. And then it’s a decision from our back line to have to drop in those moments and just protect themselves. And it was too easy to get between our lines, and to get guys on the ball facing forward. And then they were just breaking into the depth. And we were still tracking guys in midfield. We weren’t reading the situations. And it just starts with getting pressure on the ball, making things clear, so that the solutions for our back line are better. But our back line also has to read that when the solutions aren’t clear, that they just need to drop and protect the space behind them, and deal with the situation and keep it in front of you. And, neither of those two things excised on a consistent basis in the first half, and that’s how you give up chances and goals.”
On watching it live, and watching the replay on the moment Raheem Edwards had an arm in his neck in the box, and what he heard from the referee or the fourth official:
“Honestly, I’m so beyond talking about the refereeing. I honestly don’t understand that game anymore when it comes to fouls and not fouls, and things like that. I honestly have… I’ve lost trying to deal with that. For me, it’s dealing with our team. And I’ve got to deal with our team. Because if I try to get in to dealing with trying to understand referee’s calls and no calls, I end up spending energy on things that ultimately aren’t going to change. It’s been going on for a long time, and it isn’t going to change. So, I’m done writing letters and talking to people and getting apologies after – not even apologies, because nobody apologizes – but getting explanations after, and all that kind of stuff. I’m done. I don’t need that. I need to focus on our team. And our team needs to focus on ourselves. And the things that we need to do. Because we give up goals, our own fault, in this game. And that’s unacceptable.”
On what he told his team at halftime that motivated the squad to noticeably change:
“Well, outside of just the silly mistakes, and the poor play, like I said, one of the things was that we needed to be more proactive in our step out defending. I felt like we couldn’t pose ourselves on them. We could create more transitions for ourselves. We could win balls in better positions. We could eliminate some of the longer possessions if we got the right support. If our forwards released off of their midfielders. If our midfielders would release, because they only had one guy high. It was two guys high, but one midfielder high, and that was [Jamiro] Monteiro. So, we don’t need two defenders defending one attacking midfielder, and two defenders defending one striker. We have to support the forwards, who, now when the forwards are released to give pressure to the ball, one of our midfielders has to step and take their pivot in that situation, and we can start to really dictate the play and keep things on our side, and make it predictable. And we have enough numbers behind that pressure to deal with whatever they have forward. We had to solve that, because if we didn’t solve that, we were never going to touch the ball. So, that was the first thing we needed to solve. And if you can solve that, you can win balls in positive positions to try to start attacks from better areas of the field. And try to use that momentum to try to build some speed into the attack. And get forward. And catch them when they’re spread out in their position, or whatever. And so, that was, for me, the primary thing that we had to figure out. And then takeaway just the silly mistakes, and just concentrate. And do the right things. But the second we can make clear that we were going to get pressure to the ball, I felt like everybody got more comfortable, and got a little bit more certain about their duals. And, it became clear. And we started to take control of the game. We started to create chances. We started to build the momentum that I think is what this team should be about. But, in the first half, we didn’t get there. And then we had early goals that didn’t allow… it just meant that we were fighting our way back for the whole second half.”
On if tonight’s performance showed how valuable and essential Mark Delgado is to the squad”
“Yeah. I knew Mark Delgado… the fact that Mark Delgado is not an [MLS] All-Star, to me, is crazy. He’s one of the best midfielders in this league this season. You can see it statistically and you can see it in his performance. He is a machine. He does the work of two guys. He reads plays. He closes things out. We certainly miss Marky. I think he’s been the engine of our team this year. And so, certainly we missed him. Unfortunate situation. It came up yesterday morning. So, it just… we missed him. It’s one of the reasons why I think we have to bring in another midfielder. Which we’re doing. Because I think were very reliant on Mark. And obviously Rayan [Raveloson] gave us some good work and a good engine today, but I think Mark’s ability to read and recognize, and move people, all that kind of stuff, is special for our group. So, we missed him. I think Mark steps in the first half and he starts to get onto that support because he understands that, so I think we missed it. I think that’s an area where we will continue to get better and stronger in that midfield, which will help our team. Because I think when we win the midfield, we are a good team and we can create some serious chances. So, yeah, we missed Mark.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER VÍCTOR VÁZQUEZ
On what he saw in the match before coming in as a second-half substitute:
“I think at the beginning of the game we started good with the right intensity. Of course, after the first penalty, after the first mistake we let it down again and I think we didn’t have the right mentality to keep the game 1-0 kind of like trying to settle the game in a better way. We got punished again on the second one. Again, a mistake from us. I don’t think it’s about them doing the right things. I think it’s more about us not doing the right things and doing mistakes that make us chase the game. Playing at home again, against a rival… It’s San Jose. It’s a Clasico. We have to bring the right mentality and we didn’t. We say it many times right now and I think it’s the third time at home that in the halftime we are losing 3-0. This cannot happen anymore and it’s on us. It’s not about the technical staff, it’s not about the fans. It’s about the players that we are on the pitch and we have to show much more.”
On if he was pleased with what he saw in the second half:
Of course you’re going to be more disappointed with the way we started. Of course the reaction in the second half was great, but it’s not enough. You can see we lost the game then it’s not enough. It happened against Minnesota, it happened against Houston and now again against San Jose. It’s not the way to start the game. And of course we have to be really disappointed from the first half because the second half the guys on the field they did the job. We tried to come back. We were so close to tie the game, but like I said, it’s not enough. When you’re starting the game losing 3-0 at home, it’s so hard to work and to come back. And it happens many, many times. It’s even worse because it’s happening here at home. If it happens outside, sometimes you can get whatever… The circumstances when you’re playing away. You’re not feeling the support from your fans, but at home we are feeling and they are always supporting us and they are always that. We are not showing the same to them and it’s a big loss against a big rival. It’s a Clásico and we are mad. We have to turn this around because we have another one on [Saturday] and the thing is… In the playoffs, they are getting really tight between the teams and if we want to make the playoffs this season we have to wake up right now.”
LA GALAXY DEFENDER DERRICK WILLIAMS
On tonight’s match and the third goal that San Jose Earthquakes scored and whether he could have done more:
“First question, [both halves were] miles apart. First half we shot ourselves in the foot. We started off the game well. I feel like we are on the front foot, then we concede the penalty and then straight after another mistake. I need to look back at it. We shot ourselves in the foot with two goals within two minutes. It’s just not good enough, really. Third goal, I hold my hands up, one hundred percent. It caught me off guard. I’ve been sitting in the now for the last half an hour wondering why I didn’t slide. And I still don’t know why. So I one hundred percent hold my hands up. Not good enough. Second half performance is just shows how good we can be, but it shouldn’t take going down 3-0 to do a performance like that. It’s just inconsistency and it’s been our season, really. Nowhere near good enough.”
On what needs to be fixed defensively so this doesn’t continue happening:
“We are having a hard look at ourselves. I know why personally, every time we concede a goal because the first 12 games or, so we were very good in the defense. We were one of the best records. And these last six or so games, we have really fallen off. It’s difficult to know exactly what’s going wrong. We just keep shooting ourselves on the foot in wrong times. And I don’t know if it’s mentally weak, as we concede, like against LAFC we conceded two goals within two minutes. It’s just, we need to be able to have the [right mindset], that these next five to ten minutes they don’t score no matter what. We have to lock up shop and then ease our way back into the game, because we are going down these two goals so quickly, we are leaving a mountain to climb. And it’s difficult. But we watch film, we watch the goals back and it’s easy to finger point. It’s just about time we stop doing the talk and start acting and showing how good we can be. And being consistent.”
• Discuss this story on the Major League Soccer message board…
The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.
