Galaxy drops ball in loss to St. Louis

Call it an opportunity lost for the Los Angeles Galaxy.

With LAFC having lost 24 hours earlier, Sunday’s game against a St. Louis City SC side sitting in next-to-last place in the Western Conference presented a golden opportunity for the Galaxy to put some distance between them and its cross-town rivals in the race for first place in the conference.

However, on a scorching hot day in the Gateway City, the Galaxy saw said opportunity slip from its grasp. The Galaxy got off to a slow start, allowing St. Louis to take the lead early in the half off the foot of Cedric Teuchert, then having equalized with a Gabriel Pec goal, still allowed St. Louis to grab the lead back off a Marcel Hartel goal, and St. Louis delivered the upset with a 2-1 win at CityPark.

“The locker room is frustrated not getting a result,” Galaxy forward Miguel Berry said. “We see ourselves as contenders to win everything, and you know, the attitude going into every game is to win every single game and I’ve been on good teams before where that wasn’t the case. There’s a hunger there, good hunger. And this one was a tough one to swallow playing away from home not playing our best.”

Trailing 1-0 going into the second half, the Galaxy found an equalizer just 50 seconds into the half. Pec had the ball on the rights side, worked a one-two with Miki Yamane that allowed Pec to touch a ball into the penalty area. The sequence resulted in another one-two, this time between Pec and Miguel Berry, and Pec took a quick touch before he fired a ball past keeper Roman Burki into the back net to level matters.

St. Louis however was able to wrestle the lead back in the 68th minute. Eduard Lowen pounced on an errant pass from Joseph Paintsil, passed to Jayden Reid, who then crossed into the penalty area, Hartel one-timed a ball from about the penalty spot area and the ball sailed past keeper John McCarthy far post.

“I’m disappointed in the result for sure,” Galaxy head coach Greg Vanney said. “More for me, it’s being able to manage the conditions and still be able to perform on things that we need to perform on the day and execute in the ways we need to execute on the day. That’s what’s important in this time of the season. That then also translates into results.

Teuchert surprised the Galaxy in the ninth minute. St. Louis won a ball back following a goal kick and gradually worked the ball towards the penalty area. Teuchert initially took a shot outside the box that was blocked, but the ball went inside the 18-yard box, Teuchert chased it down and made the most of the second chance, firing the shot past McCarthy into the back net to stake St. Louis to the lead.