Vancouver 2, LA Galaxy 1
Q. Just your thoughts on the game and obviously allowing the early goal and then allowing a late goal is not usually a recipe for success but what did you see there?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I thought the early goal is, obviously, not something that we want to be doing, especially on the road, giving the home team 1-0. I feel like, again, our line in the back with Maya and Zanka were pretty tight together.
And so when -- when the midfielder runs out through the space, I feel like we didn't manage. We couldn't manage the run that went off Elijah and into the space behind us, and that put us in a really difficult situation and them in a really good spot. We didn't manage the space well. We didn't slide across, and strong side center back has to be able deal with that, help us deal with that space, and we weren't all the way there. And so that opened us up right off the bat.
I felt like as the half progressed, we got a little bit more into our groove and got our setup a little bit clearer and cleaner. We were doing a good job of get to go one side and getting off the other side, and I felt like we were, as we got into the last 20 minutes or so on the first half, don't quote me on exact minutes.
But I really felt like we were starting to find the right solutions to the game, and how to build through them and how to switch the play. And we were with giving ourselves some good-looking attacks, obviously one of which leads to a goal.
Then we get to halftime. They adjust. They adjust the defensive posture. They start dropping a winger with our fullback, who is going high. We have to take Emiro off, given our personalities, again, a little bit -- and where players were, like with John over on the right, the solutions that I would prefer for that weren't really there for us given personnel in some ways.
I felt like we didn't settle into the second half and solve the issues of how they were organizing their press against us. We just -- we didn't manage time well and we didn't get into good spots for each other.
As I said to the guys at the end, I think we need to recognize, we are on the road. We've had some tough circumstances with personnel. We need to do a little better job of just making game management decisions, shifting the field so that we are playing in their half of the field.
We need to be more mindful when we do build the attacks and get to the other half of the field. I felt like we turned over the ball too easily when we did get to their half of the field, and then it just kept the momentum built in us. We shifted the way we wanted to defend, to try to put them outside and defend balls into the box; and then we lose Brian White of all guys in the box, which is was across from the sideline, and a header from six yards out, it just can't happen.
There's too many ways that we should be able to deal with that situation and we don't and now we are really chasing.
But I feel like just, again, the context of the second game is we didn't find the right solution possession-wise, and we didn't use the ball well when we were able to. And then, you know, we -- that put us into a lot of transition defending types of moments where we weren't really that organized because we were not using the ball well.
I felt like that just led to, again, us having to reestablish our connections which I felt like we were getting there, and then we gave up a goal off of a situation that we shouldn't.
So it was a lot of work to do, and we've got some more injuries stacking up a little bit on us that we've got to deal with.
Q. I was going to ask about personnel. Updates on Sanabria, Garcés, and then Yamane was out before the game started, but any update on him?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I'll start with Miki. End of training yesterday, he was doing his minus two routine at the end of training, which he does a couple high-speed runs that he's done since he's been here, and after the first one, he started to feel hamstring a little bit.
And so he didn't come with us. It's nothing serious but it's enough that he'll miss this trip.
Let's see, and we have Emiro, the field was very slippery. There was not much footing, and Emiro, his calf on his right side was just tightening up and was rock hard by the time we got to halftime.
Again, the footing was just really a little bit sketchy, and I feel the guys were overworking to try to grab onto the turf to try to cut and change directions. Emiro certainly paid for that a little bit.
Lucas, fortunately, didn't get his leg broken in the tackle; that was not a yellow card or red card because that was bad when you look at that on video.
But he does have a fracture in his collarbone, so it seems like. We'll have to confirm that but he's certainly immobile because of the collarbone issue, and so we're going to have to manage that. That doesn't look good, short term, based on initial short of looks.
So those are the three guys from today. I think everybody else more or less got through it okay.
Q. And then finally, I think you talked about Sanabria and the tackle, the whole day on refereeing, there seemed to be -- I had some difficulty trying to figure out some of those calls. I don't know if they gave you any indication on why they didn't look at the Sanabria tackle, or if you have any indication on why some of those fouls went that way.
GREG VANNEY: I was baffled all day. On that particular one, he said he got the ball first.
So evidently, as long as you get the ball first, you can go through a guy's shin and break his leg, I guess. I don't know. I don't understand the logic. Getting the ball is, I think, irrelevant when your studs are showing and you're going through an ankle of a guy, and I don't know how much of the ball gets. I don't know. That's what it was deemed on the field. I don't know what was -- I guess that was backed up on VAR. There's a lot of other things in there that I was baffled. I spent too much energy on trying to figure that out sometimes during the game because it was confusing to me.
So I share in your astonishment, I guess, if that's the right word.
Q. During the first half, Gabriel Pec gets the goal. In the second half, very limited in his touches. Your analysis on what happened and maybe his -- less impact in that second half.
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I think less impact in the second half because we -- most of our builds in kind of zone one, zone two, as we call it, in our half of the field, were tending to trend over to our left-hand side; and so the connection between John, who is left-footed, also, who had to move over to right back, will tend to put the ball probably more on his inside, which is left foot. Not just saying John, but in general, we kept going.
Even with Novak's decisions, it was left-footed, it felt like we just kept going to the left side and we were getting stuck on the left side, which meant Gabriel was more isolated in his touches, and we weren't finding great solutions in that direction. I thought we did a very poor job of being able to recognize where pressure was coming from and get behind the pressure.
So if they are pressing us to the left, we need to get behind the pressure and over to the right and I just thought we just didn't do a good job of linking those actions up quickly enough and efficiently enough to get Gab on the ball, to get Lucas more on the ball on that side, and which I thought was a relationship in the first half which was benefiting us.
I kept feeling like between ourselves and a little bit of how they were stepping their press, we were playing right into the pressure. We weren't sharp enough and reading it fast enough to organize the solutions to it because the solution was to get behind it, like I said, and not go into it.
Q. Elijah got his first start with the team today. What did you see out of his performance?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I mean with Elijah, he has some really good qualities and interesting qualities. He's a big, powerful kid, who has good soccer sense. The thing that he's going to have to continue to grow and adapt at is just inside, and in some of these interior positions of how tight the spaces are and how quick the game has to bounce off of his foot, and being a little bit quicker in some of those actions that he's learning.
He's learning the speed of the game here, and teams are pressing quicker and releasing, and just how -- how clean and how quick. Sometimes a little combination play is the way we want to play, have to get in and out of spaces really quickly.
And so those are things that he's continuing to learn and develop. But in stretches when we are able to get into attacks, he shows you, again, his power and length to help join into things and to drive into spaces.
Defensively, I felt like, again, he got caught in between sometimes two roles, and I felt like our back line needed to communicate to him a little bit more. The first half, he got over. He got very focused on kind of defending the player in the gap and at times he needed to stay more connected to Eddie and bring Diego a little closer to him to help that situation and have Maya defend a little bit more underneath him to help him work with Eddie a little bit more.
Again, some of it is being able to adapt inside of games when teams are doing slightly different things, and reading situations, and just understanding how to apply the correct resolution to situations.
But again, he's learning, and he has some wonderful physical qualities. And he is a cerebral kid. I think, again, he's trying to step up to a little bit faster level, and not the easiest field to play on today. He'll grow. He'll learn. He's got some things to build on.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports