Match Preview: LA Galaxy vs Vancouver Whitecaps – some Fourth of July fireworks?

It’s a rare Friday night outing for the Whitecaps this week, as they look to spoil the Independence Day celebrations in Carson, California. It’s not quite top vs bottom of the table, as the ‘Caps find themselves a single point behind San Diego, but the second stage of this critical summer road trip features the weakest opponent of the current stretch.

Now, that’s not to say that the Galaxy are as completely hopeless as they were early on in the season. They do still only have one win in MLS play (which is honestly somewhat impressive), but that victory came in their last home game and they’ve since followed it up with two draws and one loss, all away from home.

So that’s just one loss in their last four! Certainly better than losing 12 of their first 16… a dubious streak that included a 2-1 Whitecaps triumph in Vancouver all the way back at the beginning of March, powered by a late winner from Brian White. Sadly, White remains unavailable for selection, as do three other starters from that clash (Sebastian Berhalter, Ryan Gauld, and Sam Adekugbe).

One of the others is back though, as Jayden Nelson should feature either in the starting XI or off the bench in a big boost to the attacking options that have been running a little low in recent weeks, to the point where the Whitecaps haven’t even started three natural forwards at the same time since the CONCACAF Champions Cup Final!

That was just over a month ago now, and it’s been a hodgepodge of Pedro Vite, J.C. Ngando, and Édier Ocampo starting up top alongside Daniel Rios and Emmanuel Sabbi most of the time since. There’s certainly been some ups and downs – and Vite playing outside of the midfield trio seems like it might be a finished experiment – shown by the team’s overall performance in the last couple games.

One would be hard-pressed to find a more striking dichotomy in back-to-back outings, as the ‘Caps followed an end-to-end, defence-optional 5-3 defeat to San Diego with a grind-it-out 1-0 win over LAFC in which they generated just a single shot on target (albeit quite a nice one at that).

Given that the squad is once again playing away from home, and still noticeably shorthanded, the ‘Caps might be entering that grind mode once again on Friday. The defensive bounceback in LA compared to the previous two defeats was certainly encouraging, with Mathias Laborda in particular putting up a five-star performance at right-back.

Something that could prove to be an issue defensively, however, is a quite noticeable hole in the defensive midfield role for this weekend. Andrés Cubas picking up an ankle ailment is compounded by Ralph Priso picking up a suspension for yellow card accumulation, meaning that with Berhalter still at the Gold Cup there are zero natural fits for the #6 position.

With just three first-team midfielders available for selection – Vite, Ngando, and Jeevan Badwal – the only real option besides one of them that I can think of would be to put Laborda in the midfield, something that has at least been attempted before in the days of Vanni Sartini. Otherwise, a formation switch to a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 could be in order to play a more flat midfield duo in the middle of the park, supported by wingbacks.

As for the Galaxy, there’s already no hope for a return to the postseason for the defending champs, as they have a battle in front of them to even climb out of last place in the West, sitting six points behind the near-equally turgid St. Louis City.

Sporting a hefty -23 goal differential on the season, the Galaxy have only kept one clean sheet all year, although they have scored multiple goals themselves in four of their last eight. Marco Reus has scored or assisted on nearly half of their goals this campaign, proving to be by far their most reliable source of danger with Riqui Puig out for the season, Dejan Joveljić in Kansas City, and their other two DPs yet to find their form.

The Whitecaps will hope those struggles continue, as they try and limp their way to another road result. With a stretch of four matches in 11 days upcoming (including the second leg of their Canadian Championship tie against Valour FC), keeping some momentum going would certainly be a nice boost.