Galaxy reach CONCACAF Champions Cup’s Round of 16 with a scoreless draw

CARSON — Before the start of the CONCACAF Champions Cup series against Sporting San Miguelito, Galaxy coach Greg Vanney credited the Panamanian club for being tough to break down.

He was certainly onto something, or maybe that speaks more to where his club is in the early days of a new season.

After a 1-1 draw in the opening leg in Panama on Feb. 19, Sporting San Miguelito came into Dignity Health Sports Park needing a goal or two to create some nervous moments for the Galaxy.

All the Galaxy needed was a scoreless draw to advance to the Round of 16 and that’s what they came away with in front of 11,603. To borrow a popular phrase from the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the Galaxy survived and advanced.

“I think we were expecting to buy a few goals tonight, get some confidence there, but you know, a clean sheet is a clean sheet,” Galaxy defender John Nelson said. “We advance and that’s the most important thing.”

The Galaxy will face Mount Pleasant FC from Jamaica, the CONCACAF Caribbean Cup champion, in a two-leg Round of 16 series next month. The Galaxy will host the first leg on March 11 and travel to Jamaica on March 19.

The Galaxy nearly had a first-half breakthrough on Gabriel Pec’s finish in the 34th minute on Wednesday, but in the build-up Joseph Paintsil was ruled to have been in an offside position, negating the goal.

As expected, the Galaxy dominated possession against the low-block sitting San Miguelito club, but the hosts only managed one shot on goal in the first half and finished with just three in the game. The Galaxy finished with 11 corner kicks.

“They are physical at the right times, when you get them in the one-on-one situations. I thought guys were good defending, even in combinations,” Vanney said. “I thought their guys, stayed close together for the most part, so they were close enough to help each other if anything broke down.

“They were really committed, you could see to the defending aspect and was like if our chance comes, we’ll try to take it and if it doesn’t, we’re going to stay together and we were committed to that in the long haul.

“If we were truly tied and needed to win the game, I would have done things differently, too. You don’t need to expose yourself to go try to score goals, especially as the game progressed. When you’re ahead and not giving up really much on the defensive side, I chose to keep it a little more stable and a little less exposed. Could we have maybe created a few more chances? Maybe. But it’s a knockout situation and you have the advantage.”

The Galaxy’s away goal in the first leg gave them the tiebreaker heading into Wednesday’s second leg.

“The most important thing is we’re going to the next round,” Galaxy goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski said. “It’s early in the year, we’ve got a lot of games and there’s still some things we have to improve on for sure, both attacking and defending. I don’t think it was perfect, but I don’t think we needed to be perfect right now. The best part of this game is that you can watch film, get back on the training pitch and kind of figure some things out and go from there.”

There was a late-game dust-up involving both teams that ended with Galaxy forward Matheus Nascimento receiving a red card, meaning he will sit out the first leg against Mount Pleasant.

The Galaxy will turn their attention back to MLS play Saturday as Charlotte FC visits.

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