Final Score: LA Galaxy 2 – New England Revolution 1
Major Talking Points:
8′ Goal – Ethan Zuback (Cristian Pavon)
Jeremy – Kessler and Sinovic both looked like they missed the mark on the goal. Kessler miss timed his jump and Sinovic was somewhat caught in no man’s land between two attackers. Penilla also did not track back, and if you listen closely, you can hear Bye yelling for Penilla to help cover. If Penilla gets back, that cross may not get through. I understand Turner not coming for it but his positioning could have been slightly better, if he comes out a bit to challenge Zuback, he may have been able to cut down the angle.
Chris C- There’s too many poor defensive plays on this goal. Bye and Penilla are unable to switch man-marking fluently. As Jeremy touched on, Bye calls on Penilla who doesn’t track back to allow Bye to cover on the second player, Danilo Acosta, causing a hesitation from Bye closing down Pavon. Pavon gets the well-placed cross off to Ethan’s waiting head, who merely had to nod due to superb placement. The second issue lies between Kessler and Sinovic. Sinovic needs to believe that Kessler can handle his own with Zubak in this instance, because if he doesn’t, Katai is also looming behind him. Sinovic notices the mistimed jump by Kessler and wants to help out, but in a true pace/ effort game, if Zubak knows he can’t do it, Katai’s got free range when Sinovic goes to save the day. Kessler needs to have his jumps on time if he’s going to be one of our CBs. That ball was well placed, but putting a body back against Zubak would’ve thrown him off. And finally, Turner could have definitely gotten himself positioned better due to no immediate threats besides Zubak.
34′ Goal – Cristian Pavon (Sebastian Lletget)
Jeremy – Sinovic got beat over the top and Turner was off balance not allowing for a good plant or push off to attempt a save. The run was good by Pavon but Sinvoic was somewhat exposed for not having as much pace. Turner’s backpeddling did not help with his balance, which can either be he just was not expecting the ball over the top or just misread the flight of the ball. Either of these two options is a little concerning.
Chris C – The pass from Lletget allows Pavon to decide how he wanted to beat Sinovic. Sinovic’s run to follow the ball was very poor and allowed Cristian the time to think about how he wanted to beat Turner. Turner wasn’t correctly shutting down the angles. He misstepped to allow himself to be beaten far side, since he was back-pedaling to try and cover the angle better.
42′ Goal – Gustavo Bou (Adam Buska)
Jeremy – Buska dragged his shot wide and Bou was there to poach it in on the back post. While it may have been close to offside, it is good to see that Bou is looking at the back post for scraps. Penilla does make a good run into the box in order to get to the ball to Buska, but again, I would like to see fluidity in the attack.
Chris P. – OH MY GOD DO WE ACTUALLY HAVE SOMEBODY THAT IS GOING TO FEED OFF REBOUNDS/POACH MISSED SHOTS?!?!?! Overall great to see Bou with the heads up play to draw back within one. Hopefully we see more of this in the regular season, as it could increase our goal output.
Overall
Jeremy – I thought that the first half was disjointed at times. Penilla looked disinterested in the entire affair, and while he would get the secondary assist on Bou’s goal, he did not trackback on the first goal, and just had this walk about the park feel to his game. Similarly, Fagudez on the other flank looked both out of shape and honestly not that great in both getting forward and tracking back. He also missed a couple of simple passes but, that may have just been some cobwebs. Bou looked like he was fooling around for a bit, and eventually, he and Buska started getting a feel for how each other play. Bye made good runs forward and tracked back, yes he got beat on for the cross, although it was a two v one situation. Sinovic got beat on both goals, the first one stuck in a who do I cover, but the second one got exposed for pace and positioning. I hate to admit this, but Turner showed why he did not get named in the 18 for the USMNT game; his positioning on the second goal was below expectations. Getting caught off balance and backpedaling did not allow him to have a chance to attempt to make a save.
Jeremy (cont) – I think Jones had a banger of a second half. Playing at both right and left-back, he got up and down the wing well, covered his defensive duties while taking on defenders and getting in some good crosses. Will be honest, and he looked gassed at the end of the second half, but it is the first preseason game. Teal and Buchanon both had very poor misses in the final ten minutes of the match, which again first preseason game but would have been nice to see them bulge the old onion bag. The kids looked good and full of energy and had some cohesion over the last 90 minutes, and in my opinion, due to both those missed chances, they should have at least gotten one goal, if not more. I think there are more positives than negatives, and with the team still missing Gil, Delamea, and Büttner, I still have the same optimism I have had this offseason.
Chris – I have to believe this game was at 70%. Bou was making turns that he wouldn’t normally take during a regular season game. He seemed like he was having fun out there. He had a few times where his pressure up top almost created problems at the back for LA.
As Jeremy pointed out, the outside mids were slow to move. Fagundez was a good problem when he applied himself to the situation, for the rest of the time he seemed to be invisible. Penilla was caught out all game leaving Bye to clean up the mess.
An important positive was the passing out of the back was mostly on point. I’d like to see the analytics for it, but it looks like they’ve got the skill. A few mis-timed passes or someone didn’t make the run they looked like they were going to make. I think those instances could have turned into more goals.