Galaxy can’t hold off an LAFC flurry

LOS ANGELES » The lategame heroics have usually belonged to the Galaxy in their series with LAFC.

Friday night, the shoe was on the other foot.

After tying the game in the 55th minute, the Galaxy allowed a pair of goals within two minutes of each other and despite a Rayan Raveloson goal in the 81st minute, the Galaxy eventually suffered their first loss against LAFC this season and the first since 2020.

“In the grand scheme of things, we got punished on not a lot of chances in my opinion,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “The two goals in the second half come on the heels of the substitution where I feel like we’re trying to get settled in.

“I thought the fight, the battle was there ... I think we came out and competed.”

The Galaxy fell behind in the first half after what can be best described as an impatient 45 minutes.

“Impatience comes from when you play with two forwards and there’s numbers high and too many numbers high the distance between the guys who are trying to get the attacks started and the guys on the front trying to score goals, there’s not a lot of linkage in between,” Vanney said. “Which for me means the possessions, end up being all or nothing and I felt like we were that in the first half. We were impatient, we didn’t have the great connections in the midfield.

“I thought that led to some transitions that we had to deal with, I thought that led to us being all or nothing in some of our attacks, so that’s one of the things we were trying to correct.”

Vanney made his first move, bringing on Sacha Kljestan and Victor Vazquez in the 69th minute.

“What we were trying to do there with the substitutions was try to get more numbers in the midfield and try to control the game,” Vanney said. “Give ourselves more options on the ball so that we didn’t spend as much time just trying to survive it.

“In the process of trying to get settled in, we gave up the two goals, but I felt like once we got settled in, we were in really good spots and started to create chances until the latter stretch where I thought we got impatient.” RAVELOSON DEVELOPING INTO THREAT » Rayan Raveloson starts as a central defensive midfielder, but as Vanney has talked recently about moving him up the field to join into the attack, he has taken it to heart.

In the last two games, including Friday, Raveloson has scored three goals and added an assist on the Galaxy’s first goal against LAFC.