{"id":48980,"date":"2015-07-21T19:13:56","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T02:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=48980"},"modified":"2015-07-22T18:06:48","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T01:06:48","slug":"la-galaxy-vs-fc-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=48980","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona Too Much for Galaxy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sergio<\/a>

Sergio and Barcelona played keep away from Steven Gerrard and the Galaxy. (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tim Peterson<\/p>\n

(Pasadena) –\u00a0FC Barcelona dominated the action from beginning to end and beat the LA Galaxy 2-1 Tuesday in the\u00a0International Champions Cup before 93,236 at the Rose Bowl.<\/p>\n

Barcelona was in absolute control in the first half\u00a0as they were in possession 76% of the time to compared to 23 for the Galaxy.<\/p>\n

Luis Suarez scored for Barcelona in the\u00a045th minute after the Galaxy failed to clear.\u00a0Suarez may have got away with a hand ball but there was no call and\u00a0Barca was up 1-0 at half.<\/p>\n

\"Bradford<\/a>

Bradford Jameison and the Galaxy get a score in the second half to cut the lead to 2-1 (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n

Steven Gerrard\u00a0had a run early in the half\u00a0and then made a\u00a0cross to\u00a0Dan Gargan but it was\u00a0blocked by Barcelona.\u00a0Barca had an opportunity on a corner by\u00a0Suarez but he sailed\u00a0it high over the bar.<\/p>\n

Barcelona had another shot when\u00a0Sergio Roberto fired one\u00a0on goal but it whistled wide right in the 35th minute.<\/p>\n

Suarez then broke the scoreless tie.<\/p>\n

Barcelona dominated the first half. They had\u00a0eight total shots to none for LA. Also Barca\u00a0controlled the ball\u00a076 % to 23 for the Galaxy. Do total passes matter?\u00a0Barcelona\u00a0had\u00a0398 to 121 for LA.<\/p>\n

Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena made wholesale changes in the second half replacing nearly all of his starters.<\/p>\n

“They (the reserves) did well. I think it is a fabulous experience for them. Some of these kids are 19 years old, playing against an outstanding club. I don’t think Robbie (Keane) and Steven (Gerrard) need these games as much as the young kids need the experience,” Arena said. “You can tell them a lot of things but until they step on the field and experience it against quality players they don’t fully comprehend. Tonight for our young players it was an invaluable experience.”<\/p>\n

Barcelona\u00a0continued to pressure early in the second half.\u00a0Galaxy goalkeeper, Andrew Wolverton, who replaced Brian Rowe\u00a0in the second half,\u00a0made a nice save\u00a0right in front of the net.\u00a0But Barcelona found the net again early in the second half when Roberto booted one past Wolverton after a defensive breakdown.<\/p>\n

Bradford Jamieson\u00a0IV had a shot from the corner for the Galaxy but couldn’t score and later in the half\u00a0Raul Mendiola hit\u00a0Ariel Lassiter on the\u00a0run at the goal\u00a0but Lassiter fired it wide right in the 75th minute.<\/p>\n

Edson Buddle\u00a0got off a\u00a0bullet but it was\u00a0right at Barca goalkeeper Jose Suarez in the 83rd minute.<\/p>\n

Barcelona played the game without stars Lionel Messi and Neymar while the Galaxy was without\u00a0Omar Gonzalez, Jaime Penedo, Gyasi Zardes and Alan Gordon who\u00a0are all participating in\u00a0Gold Cup action.<\/p>\n

The Galaxy avoided the shutout when Tommy Meyer\u00a0headed\u00a0one in off of a corner\u00a0past Suarez\u00a0in the 90th minute.\u00a0But it was not enough as Barca emerged with the 2-1 victory.<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a>

It was a capacity crowd for Galaxy v. Barcelona<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson (Pasadena) –\u00a0FC Barcelona dominated the action from beginning to end and beat the LA Galaxy 2-1 Tuesday in the\u00a0International Champions Cup before 93,236 at the Rose Bowl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[11442,10063,5718],"class_list":["post-48980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-soccer","tag-fc-barcelona","tag-la-galaxy","tag-rose-bowl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48980"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49008,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48980\/revisions\/49008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}