The Galaxy can see the finish line to the regular season.
Heading into Wednesday’s road game against the Colorado Rapids, the Galaxy is down to its final three games of the regular season.
“It’s the time of year, you kind of get the feel that the playoffs are right around the corner,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “All the games you see across the league, the meaningfulness of each game becomes clearer and clearer, as it results to the table, so it’s kind of that exciting part of the year.”
The Galaxy (17-7-7, 58 points) is still on top of the Western Conference, six points ahead of Real Salt Lake and LAFC and eight ahead of the Rapids. With this game and Saturday’s final home game against Austin FC, the Galaxy’s positioning in the West should become a lot clearer.
“I think everyone is looking forward to just getting started again,” Vanney said. “Getting this week going and trying to win the West and position ourselves for the playoffs.”
One positive for the Galaxy this season has been its resiliency. The Galaxy hasn’t lost consecutive games. In fact, its longest winless streak – which spanned five games from April 27 to May 18 – included only one loss.
“From the start, we had big goals and ambitions to do something and it was all about us maintaining a good group mentality,” Galaxy goalkeeper John McCarthy said. “It’s a long season, but it always has to be one (game) at a time.
“All you can care and worry about is the task at hand. (Monday) was training, you have to take care of training and then bounce and get ready for the game. We just have to prepare mentally for the next game.”
To finish where it wants, this will be the first Galaxy team, which hasn’t won the West since 2011, to reach 60 points since 2014.
The 2011 and 2014 teams were MLS Cup champions.
“All of us that were here last year, we embraced and understood how much last year sucked and how difficult and challenging it was on many different levels,” Vanney said. “You can talk about it when you’re going through it, but I think if you talk to anyone that was here, was down around the locker room and the team, we knew we were on the right path.
“The group stayed together last year, through all of the challenges and we knew that we stayed the course in terms of what our longer-term direction was. We trusted and believed in our style of play and the things we wanted to do. Then you go into the offseason, you get some things right and you get the right guys and you get the emotion of what was a terrible feeling for that season behind you. The whole beginning of this year, just had a different energy and a different emotion from Day One and the guys have been able to capitalize on that and get results. And when you get results, everything starts to build and snowball and the group has been excellent that way.”
GALAXY at COLORADO RAPIDS
When: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Dicks Sporting Goods Park; Commerce City, Colorado
How to watch: Apple TV (MLS Season Pass)
