Photo: Marjorie Elzey
Who: LA Galaxy vs. Philadelphia Union
What: MLS Regular Season
Where: Dignity Health Sports Park, Carson, CA
When: Saturday, July 8th, 10:30 ET
Watch: Apple TV
Whistle: REF: Fotis Bazakos, AR1: Claudiu Badea, AR2: Kevin Lock, 4TH: Jeremy Scheer, VAR: Younes Marrakchi, AVAR: Jeff Muschik
The Union will travel to the west coast for the final time this regular season to take on the LA Galaxy.
The LA Galaxy has lost only one of 12 all-time meetings against the Union (8 Wins, 3 Draws), including going unbeaten in their last 7 meetings (5 Wins, 2 Draws). The seven-match run is the Union’s longest active winless streak against any opponent. Granted, the two sides have not squared off in over four years.
Scouting Report: LA Galaxy
LA Galaxy have caught some steam as of late, going unbeaten in their last six regular season games (2 Wins, 4 Draws). One of those wins came this past Wednesday against rivals LAFC, prevailing 2-1 in what was a thrilling 4th of July contest.
Midfielder Riqui Puig showed his star power in this match from start to finish, providing the assist on forward Tyler Boyd’s goal in the 26′. Tyler Boyd would then return the favor, setting up Puig to score what would be the game winner in the 57′. Puig’s performance earned him Matchday Player of the Week.
Despite the recent turnaround in form (they won just two of it’s first 14 matches) the Galaxy still find themselves looking up at most of the Western Conference, currently sitting in 13th place on just 19 points. They’ll need to continue this strong run if they are to have any shot at making the MLS Cup Playoffs.
Availability Report: Coulibaly (Probable – Knee), Caceres (Out – Knee) Rodrigues (Out – Thigh), Chicarito (Out – Knee), Neal (Out – Int’l Duty), Zavaleta (Out – Int’l Duty)
Scouting Report: Philadelphia Union
The Union are coming off a 0-2 loss at Atlanta on Sunday. The loss is the team’s first shutout loss by multiple goals in league play since losing to Miami 0-2 in early March.
The Union have conceded two or more goals in 3 of their last 4 matches, something they had done just twice in their previous 11 matches. Starting goalkeeper Andre Blake was absent in two of those 3 multi-goal against matches, which may have been a contributing factor. He will again be unavailable for this match while away with Jamaica in Gold Cup action.
Defender Damien Lowe will also, again, be unavailable while away with Blake and Jamaica. Starting left-back Kai Wagner missed Sunday’s match in Atlanta with a hamstring injury and does not appear to be available for Saturday’s match.
The Union are not at full strength and are in the middle of a very difficult road trip which will see them travel to Nashville the following week. This will be a tough test for the boys in blue.
Availability Report: Wagner (Out – Hamstring), Blake (Out – Int’l Duty), Lowe (Out – Int’l Duty)
Matchup to Watch – Defense
The Galaxy put two past LAFC midweek and the Union are a bit depleted in the back. Whatever way Union head coach Jim Curtin sets his back line, they’ll need to bring it to shut-down LA on the road.
Player to Watch – Riqui Puig
The Spaniard put on a show midweek and will look to stay hot.
Prediction: Galaxy 2 – 1 Union
Why can’t left coast games start at least an hour earlier? When we played LAFC recently they moved the start time an hour later when they were on Philly. No excuse weekend games and once again the Chosen Ones (Either LA team take your pick) get preference. Good luck trying to watch a replay next day with Apple showing only highlights. Maybe we can pray that this TV package ends ASAP.
Replays are available….
It doesn’t need to end as long as Apple improves it year by year. They need improvement no doubt. The highlight situation being one of the top. And they just need an “NFL redzone” type of channel without people talking over the games on the stupid 360 show. Everyone complains about Apple’s announcers, but I’d just say they’re subpar. Of course they need improvement, but I’ve listened to a lot of bad announcing in my day lol. If anyone watched El Trafico on Tuesday night…it was terrific, the coverage, the picture, of course you had they’re best announcers too.
Who cares what kind of video a local LA game has if it sucks for Union games. And so far, for the games I’ve seen, it has sucked. The game against Atlanta was the first Union regular season game that I didn’t bother to watch since I wasn’t able to see it live and I wasn’t going to waste my time watching shitty coverage.
Never said Union games weren’t awful broadcasts, so you’re missing the point. Did you see the coverage tonight? Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the live feed dropped several times smh.
Thats what I thought. Tried to get the Orlando game the next day and all I saw was highlights. Maybe needed to scroll down/across. The way it’s going won’t have to put up with it next year anyway with underwhelming subscriptions to MLS Season Pass.
When you go to watch, hold down “Watch Replay” for 3-5 seconds and it will give you the option to watch the full match rather than just the highlights. Of course I can’t get it to work on Comcast so I have to go through my TV input rather than the cable (and if you haven’t setup the TV input settings separately, it will show you the score before you start to watch, so be careful there).
Looks like a 4-4-2 with Real at the left back.