With limited details, the Galaxy get a win over the Vancouver Whitecaps to start their 2020 preseason campaign.

CARSON, Calif. — You’d be forgiven for not knowing that the LA Galaxy played the Vancouver Whitecaps on Tuesday afternoon.

The closed-door scrimmage was not advertised, wasn’t shown on the Galaxy’s schedule, and received no coverage from the team besides a couple of photos and a highly stylized “highlight” of one of the goals. The only reason we know any details is that the Whitecaps Twitter account was tweeting their side fo the events.

The Galaxy ended up scoring four goals on the afternoon. They opened with two goals in the first half (13′, 30′) and added two more in the second half (52′, 78′). With the final goal for the club coming on a Penalty kick.

The Whitecaps acknowledged the final score of 4-1 in their tweet with Vancouver getting their loan goal sometime in the second half.

Are you excited yet?

Aleksandar Katai scored one of the goals for the Galaxy after passes from Perry Kitchen and Sacha Kljestan. Those passes released pressure for Cristian Pavon to run up the left side of the midfield before cutting inside upon reaching the box. His right-footed shot was saved by the Whitecaps, but the rebound was forced home from a tight angle by Katai, who roofed the cross-goal shot. This, according to the one highlight we’ve seen of the match.

Who scored the rest of the goals, is anyone’s guess!

From pictures of the scrimmage, we know that the aforementioned players took part in the scrimmage. We also know that Emiliano Insúa probably played some minutes as well. Efrain Alvarez, Sebastian Lletget, and Julian Araujo all go some time, and Ethan Zubak was pictured.

But that’s all we know.

And from a leaked set of photographs, Javier Hernandez seemed to have gotten some playing time — we won’t make any judgment on whether he got his Visa in time, we’re sure he did. But the Galaxy played in training kits that didn’t have numbers on the back so making any positive identification is difficult.





The coverage was sparse for a reason. Initially invited, the Galaxy uninvited the media at the last minute. The Galaxy said it was at the request of both technical staffs — the Galaxy coaching staff and the Whitecaps. But Vancouver was tweeting like they didn’t care. They released their starting lineups, subs, and when the goals were scored. They didn’t mention any Galaxy players at all.

In the end, it was a 90-minute affair that saw the Galaxy score four times and concede just once. And for a team that is trying to answer two big questions — who is going to score, and who is going to defend — getting four goals and allowing just one seems to be a positive step forward, especially if the “starters” played at least 45-minutes.

The Galaxy will host another closed-door scrimmage on Monday (February 10) when Bruce Arena and the New England Revolution come to Dignity Health Sports Park. That game, for the time being, is still open to the media.

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