CARTAGO, Costa Rica — The Galaxy was shut out in its CONCACAF Champions Cup opener, falling to C.S. Herediano, 1-0, in the first leg of the Round of 16 series on Wednesday night.
Elias Aguilar scored from long distance in the 65th minute and Herediano held on.
The second leg of the two-game, total-goals series is scheduled for next Wednesday night at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson.
“One of our objectives here was to get an away goal,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “We had some chances. We didn’t finish them and now we’re at home and we’ve got to make sure that we manage our goal and get someone on the attacking end. Credit to them. Their whole team worked really hard to protect their goal. They were disciplined. Now we’ve got to take care of business at our place.”
On the decisive play, Herediano’s Haxzel Quiros stole the ball and passed to Aguilar, whose left-footed shot from 25 yards out nestled into the bottom left corner.
Herediano goalie Dany Carvajal and Galaxy goalkeeper John McCarthy each made four saves.
“I thought John had an excellent game again,” Vanney said. “The areas around the goals were bouncy, and I think in terms of risk-taking and not, he was very calculated in a lot of those moments. He made some big saves in a couple of situations that he needed to come up big. I thought he showed good presence in the back, like he always has.
Defender Harbor Miller, 17, made his Galaxy debut.
“I thought Harbor was excellent,” Vanney said. “Of all the players throughout the day, I felt like Harbor found the speed and the physicality of the game right from the start and was able to match it through the course of 90 minutes. That was impressive for a young man in his first start with the Galaxy. He had an excellent game, both defensively and offensively. I couldn’t be more proud of him and the effort and the quality of game he put together.”