Galaxy next travel to face Vancouver Whitecap FC at BC Place on Sunday, March 2 at 2:00 p.m. PT on MLS Season Pass

LOS ANGELES (Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025) – Beginning the 2025 MLS Regular Season, the LA Galaxy fell 2-0 to expansion side San Diego FC before a sellout crowd of 25,244 Dignity Health Sports Park on Sunday afternoon.

2025 MLS Regular Season Home Opener

The loss against San Diego marked the Galaxy’s first defeat at Dignity Health Sports Park in MLS play (Regular Season & Playoffs) in 21 matches played at the venue (17-1-3) dating back to Oct. 21, 2023. The Galaxy entered the match with a 15-game winning streak across all competitions at Dignity Health Sports as the home team dating back to May 25, 2024, outscoring their opponents 45-19 during that span. In 43 matches played against MLS clubs in their expansion year dating back to 1998, the LA Galaxy hold a record of 24-11-8. In 30 all-time MLS Regular Season Home Openers (Rose Bowl Stadium, Dignity Health Sports Park), LA holds a 17-9-4 record.

Three LA Galaxy players made their debut for the club in the match against San Diego. Christian Ramirez started and logged 63 minutes of action in the loss to San Diego. In his MLS and LA Galaxy debut, Lucas Sanabria started and played 63 minutes against SDFC. Elijah Wynder made his MLS and Galaxy debut coming off the bench, logging 27 minutes of action.

SD – Anders Dreyer (Hirving Lozano), 52nd minute: Emiro Garces’ heavy touch fell to Hirving Lozano inside the box. Lozano quickly laid the ball off into the path of Anders Dreyer, whose first-time shot was fired past Novak Mićović.

SD – Anders Dreyer (Tomas Angel), 90+3rd minute: Tomas Angel slipped a pass behind the Galaxy defense to Anders Dreyer, who curled his first-time effort into the far corner.

• The loss against San Diego marked the Galaxy’s first defeat at Dignity Health Sports Park in MLS play (Regular Season & Playoffs) in 21 matches played at the venue (17-1-3) dating back to Oct. 21, 2023.

• In 43 matches played against MLS clubs in their expansion year dating back to 1998, the LA Galaxy hold a record of 24-11-8.

• In 30 all-time MLS Regular Season Home Openers (Rose Bowl Stadium, Dignity Health Sports Park), LA holds a 17-9-4 record.

• Miki Yamane created a game-high four chances, won four of four tackles and completed 63 of 72 passes in the loss to San Diego.

• Emiro Garces completed 75 of 80 passes (93.8%), won a game-high 14 possessions and won 11 of 19 duels and won four of eight tackles against SDFC.

• Making his LA Galaxy debut, Christian Ramirez started and played 63 minutes

• In his first start of the 2025 campaign, Novak Mićović started and made four saves against San Diego FC.

• In his LA Galaxy and MLS debut, Lucas Sanabria logged 63 minutes of action, completed 24 of 32 passes (75.0%) and won four of six duels.

• The Galaxy and San Diego will play once more during the 2025 MLS Regular Season, with LA traveling to face San Diego FC at Snapdragon Stadium on Saturday, May 24 at 1:30 p.m. PT (MLS Season Pass).

Next Game
Next up, the LA Galaxy travel to face Vancouver Whitecaps FC at BC Place on Sunday, March 2 (2:00 p.m. PT; MLS Season Pass).
2025 MLS Regular Season

LA Galaxy (0-1-0; 0 pts) vs. San Diego FC (1-0-0; 3 pts)

Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025 – Dignity Health Sports Park (Los Angeles)

Goals by Half     1     2     F

LA Galaxy         0     0     0

San Diego FC      0     2     2

Scoring Summary:
SD: Dryer (Lozano), 52
SD: Dryer (Angel), 90+3

Misconduct Summary:
SD: Godoy (caution), 45
SD: Negri (caution), 56

LA: GK Novak Mićović; D Miki Yamane, D Emiro Garces, D Maya Yoshida ©, D John Nelson (Julián Aude, 72); M Edwin Cerrillo, M Lucas Sanabria (Elijah Wynder, 63), M Marco Reus (Ruben Ramos Jr., 72), M Diego Fagundez, M Gabriel Pec, F Christian Ramirez (Miguel Berry, 63)

Substitutes Not Used: GK John McCarthy; D Eriq Zavaleta, D Zanka, M Tucker Lepley, M Isaiah Parente

TOTAL SHOTS: 7 (Gabriel Pec, 3); SHOTS ON GOAL: 3 (Three players tied, 1); FOULS: 10 (Edwin Cerrillo, Gabriel Pec, 3); OFFSIDES: 1; CORNER KICKS: 1; SAVES: 4

SD: GK CJ Dos Santos; D Franco Negri (William Kumado, 63), D Paddy McNair, D Christopher McVey, D Jasper Loffelsend (Ian Pilcher, 88); M Luca de la Torre (Onni Valakari, 63), M Jeppe Tverskov, M Anibal Godoy (Alejandro Alvarado, 83), M Hirving Lozano (Tomas Angel, 88), M Anders Dryer, F Marcus Ingvartsen

Substitutes Not Used: GK Pablo Sisniega; D Hamady Diop, M Emmanuel Boateng, F Alex Mighten

TOTAL SHOTS: 9 (Hirving Lozano, Anders Dreyer, 3); SHOTS ON GOAL: 6 (Anders Dreyer, 3); FOULS: 13 (Marcus Ingvartsen, 3); OFFSIDES: 2; CORNER KICKS: 3; SAVES: 3

Referee: Allen Chapman
Assistant Referees: Chris Elliot, Jeremy Kieso
Fourth Official: Ricardo Fierro
VAR: Michael Radchuk
Weather: Clear, 69 degrees

All statistics contained in this box score are unofficial

LA GALAXY POSTGAME QUOTES
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH GREG VANNEY

On the team’s performance from the first half compared to the second:

“I thought most of the night, [we looked] a little disconnected in terms of our positions, and where we needed to be and when we needed to be there. I felt like we weren’t very dynamic in the front half of the field, and when we were getting forward and getting into forward positions, we weren’t really turning or advancing possessions into attacks. I felt like it was a little bit stagnant and not as dynamic as what we’ve seen obviously in the past. In terms of breaking the other team and things like that, I felt like we weren’t very dynamic on that side of things. In the build, again, I think between our midfield and between the guys in the build, I felt like we just were not positionally where we needed to be when we needed to be there and showing up and working off each other. We just looked a little disjointed, and that maybe means we weren’t prepared for where we needed to be with the new additions that we’re sliding into the group. It didn’t look like a team that just won the championship. We looked like a team that’s fitting some things together still, and that’s what it felt like tonight. Ultimately the game turns on a mistake. They are very good in possession. They are close together. We saw that in Coachella. So, organizing the recovery of the ball isn’t always so easy because they are in good spots, and they move the ball pretty quickly. There wasn’t a ton in it until we made the error. We go down 1-0. And then things start to open up and change a little bit as we start to push forward. I thought towards the end, when we had some urgency in our game, we started to get a little more dynamic. We started to move a little bit more. Break lines with our runs. Get to the end line. We see some good balls cut back. We are starting to see, again, some more things that look like real opportunities, I think, in the latter part of the game.”

On his thought process in deciding the Starting XI:

“Whenever you lose a game, you can always have second thoughts [about who you start]. That’s easy. Yeah, it was Elijah’s running and his power; it would have been his first MLS game, too. You’re kind of gauging that. With Lucas, he is maybe a touch more experienced. But also, it’s a whole new setting and surroundings and things like that for him to get used to. We thought with Elijah coming in he would bring some power to the game and some running, and with Miguel, he is certainly more of a runner. Christian is more of a linkup player, and Miguel is more of a runner. I felt like we needed something more dynamic and that it was going to stretch and go behind and try to force their back line into more decisions than we were giving them in the early part of the game. Those guys came on. I think Ruben came on and he was good in spots and he knows what we’re trying to do. At that time, I think also for Marco, he had not gone past 45 minutes in preseason, and we also have to be mindful of how far we are trying to push him in the grand scheme of things. It’s still the first game.”

On the difficulty of defending the title and the game’s result:

“I believe that the Galaxy are always going to get everybody’s best shot. Everybody wants to beat the Galaxy. And you know, because of the club that it is, that’s something you deal with all the time. I think being the champion, for sure.

We had some significant changes over the course of the off-season and we have got to settle our group in and figure out how this group is going to be successful at the moment without the guys that we have, which is something we need to adapt to starting with me and the guys, as well, and integrate guys in. Because again, I think it looked a little disjointed, and it didn’t look like we were ready for what the situation was. And so, we’ve got to continue to build and prepare and get better with each training session each day and be more ready for the next one than we were tonight. Each guy understanding their positions and their roles a little bit clearer than we were. Being the champion, it is very difficult to go back-to-back in this league, and teams are going to give you their best. Especially a new franchise that’s down the street that’s been preparing for this moment for years now, and they certainly came out with the right energy and emotion and had a good game. Good credit to them. They have done a lot of good work in a short period of time.”

On the first goal scored by the opposing team:

“That’s a tough ball to handle. I didn’t feel like Novak was under as much pressure as it looked like he was when he hit the ball. So, for Novak to maybe be a little bit calmer and to deliver a pass that’s a little more friendly. At that point that it arrived at Emiro, I think it was almost more self-defense than it was trying to actually do something with it. He was actually trying to bring it down. The whole thing just felt a little bit rushed, and it didn’t really need to be. And we saw that at times, I felt like, through the course of the game there were a lot of, what I call for our group, uncharacteristically, unforced errors through the course of the game. Choices that just didn’t sometimes make sense to me. We were hitting long balls when we had simpler, easier solutions.”

On the loss at home, despite last season’s achievement of being unbeaten at Dignity Health Sports Park:

‘It’s just a fact at this point. I said to them, ‘this can’t happen.’ Like this is where we get points. This is where we win. We establish that as something that’s very important to us. It’s something we did last year. But we don’t lose at home. Is it a rallying cry? It’s a wake-up call, I guess, as all of them are. It’s just we have got to be more prepared and we’ve got to be better, especially at home, but we’ve got to be better and we’ve got to build ourselves into the season. The integration of our group and the understanding of playing at home versus playing on the road, all those things need to be tightened up.”

On Diego Fagundez’s preseason and match play:

“I think a lot of it is positional things that I didn’t like about how we were set up. I felt like there were a lot of times where Diego was on an island on the outside, and he didn’t have support around him and somebody that he could play off of and work with. I felt like the spot and the position that was supposed to be there to help him was constantly leaving and moving into other areas of the field to try to find ways to get involved in the game. So in the first half, we were trying to adjust maybe who might be in that gap to help him. So I just feel like, again, he was isolated a lot, and that has to improve. I didn’t see the isolation during the course of preseason. And then we get to the game, and then things start; people are moving and trying to get involved in ways that break the structure and change the picture of what’s supposed to be happening. So that’s something that has to be worked on because Diego being out there on his own is not going to accomplish the things we need Diego to accomplish. He’s a guy that plays in collaboration with two or three other players and he’s a guy who connects and runs off and does very smart tactical things and he is not a guy who is going to go one-on-one and dominate his side on his own.”

On whether this result reflects the potential of the team:

“I’m not scared. I think it’s adding some new players. It’s the profiles of the players sometimes that are out there and making sure we find the right balance of guys who can give us some stretch and guys who are looking between the lines. I felt like that balance was off early on, and then we uncharacteristically were making mistakes. We were not great in possession, and then we were not dynamic ahead of the possession that would turn normal possessions into attacks and dangerous opportunities. I don’t think it’s normal. I think it’s this group; it’s going to be the growing pains of this group and not having a guy like Joe [Paintsil] changes how dynamic you are at the top and others. It’s something we’re going to have been very mindful of to make sure it doesn’t become a habit. It’s something we adjust. It was one of my potential concerns of the day if I’m being honest – how dynamic and how vertical we would actually be at the top.”

On the return of Riqui Puig and Joseph Paintsil:

“Riqui, I wouldn’t even bother trying to figure it out. He’s still far enough away that it’s not even worth guessing. With Joseph, I don’t know exactly. I would say probably still a few weeks. He has not had enough preseason under his belt either. This is going to be a process for him. We want this to be his only injury of the season, and so we need to make sure we take our time and do this right.

On Matheus Nascimento’s availability:

“I’m optimistic and I think he could be available by next week. It’s just a visa issue, and I think it should get done hopefully this week. We were kind of hoping it would be done before the game. So, I suspect it will probably get done next week.”

LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER ELIJAH WYNDER

On his MLS debut and the atmosphere:

“I would say the atmosphere is great. Fans were very loud and very supportive. Even after the game, they are still there showing their support. I came in and just tried to bring some energy to the match. We obviously didn’t get the result, but it was nice to get the debut under my belt.”

On the difference between MLS and USL competition:

“I feel comfortable. Obviously, there’s a jump up. Faster, a lot more physical. But going through preseason and getting my debut under my belt, I do feel comfortable.”

On approaching opportunities to solidify a position for himself:

“Obviously you approach it, you come in every day, you do your job the best you can do and then you control what you can control. And at the end of the day, it’s the coach’s decision. You just control what you can control and put yourself in the best position possible.”

On what role Coach Vanney seeks in him:

“We talk a lot because it’s a new, different formation from what I’m used to. We speak a lot about what he wants from me, what he sees in me, what my strengths and weaknesses are and how often he wants me to play the position.”

On expecting the level of intensity that San Diego came out with:

“They are a new team. First game in the league. We expected them to come out with everything they have, which typically you expect from every team you’re playing, especially the first game of the season. But they came out and played well.”

On how he’s feeling about being in Los Angeles and any major differences from Louisville:

“It’s a very different city. I think I’m finally starting to settle into the city itself and settle in with the guys. It is very different being this far away from home. But I talk to my family almost every day. So, they support me from over there and we catch up every day.”

LA GALAXY FORWARD CHRISTIAN RAMIREZ

On what he needs to do to get more involved in the game:

“I think it’s obvious that I’ve only been here for like ten days or so, and we’ve just gotten used to different system and different players, and obviously missing a few players. It’s the first game, so we’re just trying to figure things out as we go. San Diego, credit to them. They played very well. Took possession away from us and changed a few things in their build up that made it difficult for us. We just have different understandings of the transition moments, and when to keep possession and maybe not go all the way back to the goalkeeper. But that will come. There’s no need to rush and overanalyze. We’ll look at the film and then be better next time.”

On being able to share the experience of playing for a team the season after winning the MLS Cup with other LA Galaxy players:

“I think it’s something that I’ll be able to pass on throughout the year, knowing what is coming this year, the grueling schedule, how teams get up for these games. It becomes a championship game for teams to prove themselves against us. So just stay level-headed and understand the moment and not get too high or too low and not focus too far ahead and enjoy this process. It’s a little bit of the curse of the championship opening day, to let that sort of slow us into the season. The process takes a little bit longer with the banner and everything. But yeah, I’m sure I’ll be able to pass some information on as the season goes on.”

On today’s dynamism in the attack:

“I think we’re on several different pages at times and just lacking that last little ball or the patience to have that last ball. Sometimes when it’s so wide open, the back line is so spread, it seems like you need to rush it, but we don’t. It’s just a matter of getting an understanding of each other. So, I think the more we can move for each other and understand in the buildup the spots that we need to be in to expose teams, getting there early, especially when teams are going to come press our back line, it just comes with games.”

On what it means to play for the Galaxy:

“It’s a bit surreal. I wish we would have won tonight, or this afternoon, in this debut. But I’m thankful for it. It is a dream come true to be from Garden Grove and grow up watching this club, and to finally put those colors on and to have my kids and my wife and my parents, everybody in the stands. It’s a day I’ll never forget and hopefully I’m able to lift some silverware for this club because I know playing for a club of this magnitude, that’s what’s important. I’m just going to enjoy the ride and do everything I can to make it a good one.”

On what San Diego was doing well:

“I think they were very narrow and had good numbers around the ball. Making it difficult for myself and Marco to get close enough, and they were threatening him behind with Lozano, and so it kept our back line a little bit further than we would like. So, once we fixed that, we had moments where we picked them, and then a bounce here or there, and then we were going another way. You saw that moment when we picked them, and Diego was in on goal and got fouled. So, it’s just about realizing those moments and adjusting a little bit quicker to what the opposition is doing.” LA GALAXY DEFENDER MAYA YOSHIDA On the first goal scored by the opposing team:

“No this is what we’ve done since last season, and we always dominate the team. Of course that was a mistake. San Diego pressed us high, and yeah to be honest they were much better than we thought. They just trained for six weeks to build up their team and club and it surprised me. People will probably say it’s our mistakes, but I would say it’s our mistakes and overall, I would say they prepared well over a short period to make it this kind of game.”

On how the Galaxy handled the match:

“There’s no excuse, even though we missed a couple of important players, experienced players, who can change the game, even though we prepared well, and we already have the base of the team since last season. Of course, new players have to understand how we play still; we should have done better. Instead of six weeks’ preparation for them we should have done better. Today is totally lost. It’s a defeat.”

On if this loss was a wakeup call:

“It should be. We are the champions, but it’s a new season and no one starts 3 steps forward, we are flat, and everyone starts equal and that’s why we have to be hungry and fight as a challenger. After the game they are celebrating like this is the cup final, this is how much they want to beat us in the next 33 games. We have to be ready for this and fight for that, today wasn’t enough of a show but next week Vancouver, our next important game, will be tough as well. After that we have Concacaf champions league and lots of games coming so we need to build our structure more and more. This is very obvious. We have to be better.”

On no longer being unbeaten at Dignity Health Sports Park:

“Yes, any defeat is disappointing for me, especially at home. Like we had a great result last year, and of course we wanted to continue. But this is just one of 33 games, plus the playoffs we look for. So one day, we could lose a game. This is normal. This is part of the game. The important thing is, as I said, our season, we don’t lose twice in a row, and it is very, very important to continue as a competing team, competing in this competition. The next game is more important. And also, we have just played one game and better understand how we play and how they come [at us]. Of course, in the next game, the opponents are going to analyze the team and the game. So it’s going to be more difficult. But I still have confidence to compete. Fitness-wise, also, it’s getting better. This is my first 90 minutes since MLS Cup final. I’m still very positive.”

On the difference in Keepers and how it impacts his play:

“J-Mac [John McCarthy] has more experience and Novak probably has more distribution skills. Unfortunately, this happened today but this is normal for young players, not only him, but also the opponent closed my side and waited for us to make mistakes. This is how they wanted to play against us. So, we have to analyze, and we have to find a solution for the next game. Still, just one game and one mistake, nothing change. Of course, if it’s twice, we have to change. But this is a competition. Zanka has experience and he is an influence to the young boys on and off the pitch. I can see, it’s very important for me and I’m very happy to see that. But of course, if I don’t play well then Zanka can come in — this is normal. Every position has competition — especially we have CONCACAF Champions League and we have two squads and this is important and difficult as we have limited budget. We are just starting to build up the team.”

On if he talked to Garcés about the situation that led to the first goal:

“You can see his physical ability is fantastic. He’s very spaced, fast and strong but at the same time, he has to improve with the ball, and tactically, as well. The small detail of which position, when we pass over to zone, marking, intercepting and anticipating the game, this is next step for him to improve his career. This is very obvious. If he wants to improve it, I’m here, and everybody is here. I think easily he can improve because he has already physical ability. I cannot compete with him in 30-meter sprint.”