Galaxy drop opening exhibition

The new-look Galaxy picked up Saturday where the old model left off, falling 3-1 to Real Salt Lake in Tucson in their first exhibition of the new year.

But the news wasn’t all bad. Midfielder Sebastian Lletget, who had his 2017 season end early with a foot injury, played for the first time in 10 months, going 30 minutes and setting up the Galaxy’s lone goal by defender Michael Ciani.

“It was great to just walk out there. It’s been a long road,” Lletget said. “I did have some butterflies. I treated it like a season opener.”

With the exception of Lletget, a likely starter who came off the bench Saturday, coach Sigi Schmid opened with what figures to be his regularseason lineup. David Bingham started in goal behind a back line of Rolf Feltscher, Jorgen Skjelvik, Daniel Steres and Ashley Cole. Perry Kitchen, Jonathan dos Santos, Romain Alessandrini, Giovani dos Santos and Ema Boateng started in the midfield with Ola Kamara as a lone striker up top.

Six of those 11 players weren’t on the roster when Schmid took over as coach last July, a little more than halfway through the worst season in franchise history.

Ciani’s goal, which gave the Galaxy a 1-0 lead in the 33rd minute, came two minutes after Schmid pulled his starters, inserting, among others, 15-year-old academy product Efrain Alvarez. On the play, Lletget bent a long right-footed pass to the edge of the six-yard box for Ciani, who headed it toward the far post. Salt Lake keeper Nick Rimando got a hand on the shot, but not enough to keep it out of the net.

Salt Lake answered with three second-half scores.

The Galaxy will continue their preseason schedule against New York City FC on Saturday at StubHub Center.