Match Details:

San Jose Earthquakes vs. LA Galaxy
27^th June at 7:30 AM
Venue: PayPal Park, San Jose, California.

Preview:

The Major League Soccer, popularly known as MLS, is the highest level of football’s league system in the United States of America, where 27 clubs from across the country, divided into the Eastern and Western Conferences, battle against each other to be determined the champion football club of America. It is game week 11, and in this Western Conference league fixture, the 10^th placed team on the table San Jose Earthquakes, take on the 3^rd placed team, LA Galaxy.

In their previous respective competitive fixtures, San Jose lost 5-0 away to Orlando City, while LA Galaxy beat the Vancouver Whitecaps 1-2 away in Major League Soccer. After getting off to a brilliant start this year, San Jose have heavily faltered in their last few games, losing five of their last six in the league. They lost by a huge margin against Orlando City in their last match, shipping five goals, and now find themselves 10^th on the table with 10 points from 10 games played. They desperately need an injection of inspiration to get their campaign back on track and a win against a top team in LA Galaxy can certainly push them in the right direction again.

The Galaxy haven’t had the best of campaigns in the recent few years. After finishing 8^th overall in 2019, they slumped to the 20^th position in 2020, but have started the 2021 campaign brightly. They have picked up six wins from their nine matches played so far and are 3^rd on the table. They would want to keep this momentum going and should be able to get over the line against a struggling Earthquake side and hopefully finish the season brightly this time around.

Key Stats & Info: 

• San Jose are unbeaten in 3 of their last 4 MLS games against LA Galaxy, winning 2 of those games.
• San Jose have lost 5 of their last 6 MLS matches and failed to score in 5 of them.
• LA Galaxy have conceded at least 2 goals in 8 of their last 9 away MLS matches.

Expected XI:

San Jose

Marcinkowski, Judson, Jungwirth, Alanis, Espinoza, Remedi, Yueill, J. Lopez, Rios, Wondolowski, Cowell

LA Galaxy

Bond, Araujo, Coulibaly, DePuy, Villafana, Lletget, Kljestan, Grandsir, Vazquez, Cabral, Hernandez

Key Players:

Cowell (San Jose): American forward Cade Cowell is a San Jose Earthquakes academy graduate and since making his senior team debut in 2019, has gone on to make 30 appearances for the club across all competitions, scoring 3 goals and giving 4 assists. He scored and assisted just once each in the 2020 season in 19 games across all competitions, but has scored 2 goals and given 3 assists in 10 MLS games in the new season. In his last game against Orlando City, he played for 50 minutes and had 22 touches of the ball, and had a passing accuracy of 75% completing 9 passes. He is in good form and is expected to influence the next game.

Hernandez (Galaxy): Mexican veteran forward Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez joined the LA Galaxy in 2020 from Spanish side Sevilla and has since made 21 appearances for the club across all competitions, scoring 10 goals and giving 2 assists. His 19-20 season was split between initially playing 2 Premier League games for West Ham United scoring 1 goal, 15 games across all competitions for Sevilla scoring 3 goals, and playing 12 games across all competitions for LA Galaxy scoring 2 goals. He has scored a brilliant 8 goals in 9 MLS games in the current season and was on target in his last match against Vancouver Whitecaps. In this game, he had 1 shot on target from 2 goal attempts, had 26 touches of the ball, and completed 13 passes with an accuracy of 87%. Chicharito is rolling back the years in 2021 at Galaxy to the times when he was the exceptional goal poacher at Manchester United and has found his Midas touch again. He is definitely expected to make a difference in the next match.

Lletget (Galaxy): USMNT midfielder Sebastian Lletget joined LA Galaxy in 2015 from the English Premier League club West Ham United and has since made 157 appearances for the club across all competitions, scoring 28 goals and giving 18 assists. He scored 6 goals and gave 3 assists in 21 games across all competitions in the 2020 season, and has 1 goal and 2 assists each in 6 MLS games in the current season. He assisted one of the goals scored in his last game against Vancouver Whitecaps, where also had 1 inaccurate shot on target, 56 touches of the ball, gave 1 key pass and completed 39 passes with an accuracy of 93%. He is an important cog in the LA Galaxy machinery and is expected to serve them for a long time.

Captain & Vice-Captain Picks:

• Cowell (San Jose)
• Wondolowski (San Jose)
• Hernandez (Galaxy)
• Lletget (Galaxy)
• Kljestan (Galaxy)

Source for Stats:

https://www.transfermarkt.co.in/

https://www.whoscored.com/

https://int.soccerway.com/

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are of the author and is not a reflection of the actual points you might earn