The Galaxy are in the early days of preseason training camp and, after last week’s closed-door scrimmage against San Jose, the club will get another chance to face an opponent Saturday.
The Galaxy will host St. Louis City SC on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Dignity Health Sports Park in a preseason exhibition match.
Galaxy coach Greg Vanney liked what he saw in the closed-door scrimmage.
“The first half, I was really pleased with our performance,” Vanney said. “They didn’t have a shot on goal, we did a great job protecting our box, we won a lot of balls in the attacking half of the field. We’ve been talking about our collective movement defensively, staying connected as a group, learning how to press together as a group, also learning how to sit in a mid-block. I thought we were very sound in that.
“Our shape was good, our awareness of each was good and I thought the ball moved pretty quickly. I think we could have scored three goals, we had three really good chances, in which we scored one.”
Miguel Berry scored the Galaxy’s goal.
“We try to keep building off of that against a very different opponent,” Vanney said. “San Jose does like to have the ball, whereas St. Louis is really trying to organize the press and transition, that’s their game and they’re really hard to break down. We’re going to have to be clean with the ball and make sure we don’t play into the traps they’re going to be setting for us, but also we’re sticking to the theme of being really good defensively and making sure we’re always connected.”
Tucker Lepley impressing
The Galaxy recently drafted Tucker Lepley in the third round out of UCLA.
He played three seasons at UCLA and also had a year of USL experience with Sporting Kansas City II and utilized a redshirt year at UCLA.
“He’s been great,” Vanney said. “He’s super-competitive, clean technically and he does understand the things we’re asking him to do within the position.
“He has a high level of awareness on the field and, based off of our style and what we’re asking of him and his role, he’s very comfortable with that.”
With the Galaxy currently down healthy bodies (Daniel Aguirre, Gaston Brugman and Riqui Puig) in the midfield, Lepley is taking advantage of the time.
“He’s found a comfort zone pretty quickly,” Vanney said. “He’s not a fish out of water, which is good scouting by our guys to recognize a player you get in the third round who can step in and be a very active part of things right away and tribute to him and his development and his process. He’s been a nice – I don’t want to say surprise because we always felt he was a good player at UCLA – but he’s been a nice addition.”
Road trip on tap
After Saturday’s game, the Galaxy will spend the next two weeks in Indio for the Coachella Valley Invitational.
The Galaxy will play four games against Charlotte FC (Wednesday, 11 a.m.), Austin FC (Feb. 11, 10 a.m.), New York City FC (Feb. 14, noon) and the New York Red Bulls (Feb. 17, 10 a.m.).
All games will be available via live stream at lagalaxy.com. Tickets go on sale Wednesday.
