CARSON — The Galaxy will have a chance in next week’s CONCACAF Champions Cup quarterfinal second leg against Tigres.
That was the big question entering Tuesday night’s opening leg at Dignity Health Sports Park. Could the Galaxy find a way to keep their Liga MX opponent from scoring an important away goal and set themselves up for a chance to escape the second leg with a win.
The Galaxy, battled and bruised by a winless six-game start to the MLS season, turned in a scoreless draw in front of 13,434.
“I don’t think it’s bad at all,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said of the draw. “Being able to get the shutout is important, not giving up the away goal is huge in these things. We would have liked to have had a goal, but I’ll take the shutout over giving up a goal or 1-1 or anything like that. I think it’s a good result.
“Also, us playing clean for 90 minutes and not doing something to hurt ourselves but having a clean game is important.”
The second leg will be played next Tuesday in Mexico.
Galaxy goalkeeper John McCarthy, who let a game-losing goal slip through his hands late in Saturday’s loss against Orlando City SC, turned in his best performance, anchoring the clean sheet and giving the Galaxy hope.
McCarthy was credited with four saves. It has been an up-and-down season in goal for the Galaxy with the battle between McCarthy and Novak Micovic. Vanney has said he wants one of them to step up and take the job.
“I thought he had a nice, solid, clean night,” Vanney said of McCarthy. “Made a couple of good saves, couple that he stymied that got through the lines and he was right there. I thought the majority of his on-the-ball distribution decisions were good. He managed the game well and the team got through it well.
“For me, there’s no question what John McCarthy can do. All the nonsense about all this crisis crap is nonsense. We have two good goalkeepers and they’re both very capable. There’s one job to do and I know what each of them is capable of doing. John has done it for an entire season. I have the utmost confidence in John and he came back out tonight and showed why he’s that veteran goalkeeper. He can bounce back. He made a mistake and on my team, people are allowed to make mistakes, you just got to respond to them the right way and you’ve got to bounce back and do your job and did a nice job tonight.”
The perfect scenario would have had the Galaxy taking a lead into the rematch in Mexico, but the attack wasn’t able to break down the Tigres’ defense. The Galaxy found some success through Gabriel Pec on the wing, but they never created anything that seriously threatened the Mexican club.
The Galaxy were credited with just two shots on goal.
“We did a good job inside of the possession,” Vanney said. “It became a game of how to turn those possession moments into real chances. When teams are in a back five, you have to be able to pull them apart or else, you can run into number situations. The timing wasn’t always perfect. We were able to keep the ball, but I don’t know if we were really able to pull them apart as much as we would have liked to.”
Tigres entered the series with a 16-game unbeaten streak (9-0-7) against MLS teams, having extended that streak by defeating FC Cincinnati in the Round of 16.
The Galaxy defeated CS Herediano in the same round last month.
To start the second half, the Galaxy brought on Matheus Nascimento to replace Joseph Paintsil. The game was just second of the season for Paintsil, who returned in Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Orlando. The goal, according to Vanney is to build him to 90 minutes.
Early in the first half, the Galaxy had to sub off defender and captain Maya Yoshida with what appeared to be a left hamstring injury. The Galaxy return to MLS play Saturday on the road against Real Salt Lake.