Dejan Joveljic scored his second goal of the season, Joseph Paintsill added his first goal and assist in MLS and the visiting LA Galaxy cruised to a 3-1 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday evening.
Riqui Puig also added his first goal of the campaign for the Galaxy (1-0-1, 4 points), who have won four of the last five MLS meetings with their California Clasico rivals.
Mark Delgado provided the feed on Pantsill’s opener after his potential one-match suspension for receiving a red card in a season-opening draw against Miami was overturned on appeal.
The Galaxy exchanged the quantity of their chances for quality, scoring on three of their first five shots, all of which were on frame.
Former Galaxy forward Preston Judd scored a late consolation tally for his first goal in a San Jose shirt.
The Quakes (0-2-0, 0 points) have lost back-to-back matches to start the season for the first time since losing four in a row to launch the 2019 campaign.
The Galaxy had success all evening attacking down their right flank, and that’s where their first goal originated in the 18th minute.
Miki Yamane played a ball into the right edge of the 18-yard box that Delgado ran onto, then cut back with a cross toward the penalty arc. Paintsill let the ball cross his body then struck a left-footed strike beyond Quakes goalkeeper Daniel and into the top left corner.
It was Paintsill reaching a throughball down the right to set up LA’s second with a cross that sat perfectly for the sprinting Joveljic to hammer a one-time finish into the roof of the net.
The third came only three minutes after the break when Diego Fagundez ran onto yet another ball down the right before picking Jovejic near the byline.
Fagundez smartly dropped a cross back into the path of Puig, who easily finished into an open net with Daniel stranded at the near post.
Judd finally broke through for San Jose when he cleaned up the loose ball that followed Cristian Espinoza’s cross from the left.
But the Quakes created too little following that opportunistic strike to bring any tension to the closing stages.
–Field Level Media