LA Galaxy play 2-2 preseason draw vs. Colorado Rapids

The LA Galaxy played their second of three preseason games in Tucson, Arizona on Wednesday, which finished in a 2-2 stalemate against the Colorado Rapids.

Both teams essentially used separate groups for each half, but the teams were both matched up relatively evenly and fairly full-strength, so this gave us a better sense of how they will look when the season begins.

LA used a much stronger lineup overall for this game, Sebastian Lletget, Jonathan dos Santos, Victor Vazquez and Efrain Alvarez getting their first minutes of the public preseason games for the Galaxy. I think one player to note, Homegrown Jalen Neal maintained his place in the XI to start, this time from center back.

The Rapids also had a pretty strong XI to open the game, so this was a solid matchup.

The teams traded decent half-looks in the first quarter-hour, and the Rapids found the breakthrough in the 17th minute, with Sam Vines’ cross poked in at the far post by Michael Barrios, the cross seeming to catch the Galaxy unawares defensively.

But the Galaxy had an answer in the 25th minute, courtesy of Sebastian Lletget. An early cross was sent in by Julian Araujo, Colorado struggled to deal with it, and Lletget pounced on the chance in front of goal with a nice chip to make it 1-1.

The Galaxy completely swapped their XI at halftime, bringing in many of the same faces that have played the last three games.

The Galaxy grabbed a 2-1 lead in the 54th minute through an unlikely source, with defensive midfielder Carlos Harvey dribbling from the edge of the box on an angle, and then beating Rapids GK William Yarbrough at the near post.

But from there, Colorado really pushed to grab an equalizer, and they hit paydirt in the 63rd minute, with Jonathan Lewis’ cross from the left, and Cole Bassett tapped it in right in front of goal.

Newly-signed LA Galaxy II player Daniel Aguirre entered the game for Neal in the 70th minute. Seven minutes later, Augustine Williams replaced Ethan Zubak.

The final notable play of the game was Sacha Kljestan laying out a Rapids player on a 50-50 challenge, and Kljestan picking up a fairly rare preseason red card, but he didn’t dispute the call.

To be honest, this was a pretty choppy game for the Galaxy. I think Colorado played a little more consistently throughout the 90 minutes, but the positives were that players got game minutes, we saw something closer to the full starting XI, and they got two nice goals. I’m especially impressed with Harvey’s goal, I don’t know if it was a fluke or the start of something big, but he’s not shown much propensity to score in the past.

The Galaxy will have their final preseason game, and final game in Tucson, Saturday when they face Real Salt Lake. That game is scheduled to be streamed on LAGalaxy.com for local residents once more. We’ll see how the team looks in the final tuneup.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.