Blind Recap: Atlanta United, LA Galaxy play to a draw in preseason finale

Atlanta United concluded their preseason preparations with a scoreless draw against the LA Galaxy. Details are extremely hard to come by for this match, but what we do have is a bit worrisome.

Starting Lineups

Atlanta United: Brad Guzan; Brek Shea, Leandro González Pirez, Miles Robinson, Michael Parkhurst, Julian Gressel, Jeff Larentowicz (Anderson Asiedu 46’), Eric Remedi, Ezequiel Barco, Gonzalo Martínez (Andrew Carleton 20’), Josef Martinez

LA Galaxy: David Bingham; Diedie Traore, Diego Polenta, Daniel Steres, Rolf Feltscher, Jonathan Dos Santos, Perry Kitchen, Roman Alessandrini, Emil Cuello, Uriel Antuna, Chris Pontius (Emmanuel Boatang 46’)

The biggest talking point surrounds Pity Martinez. The huge offseason acquisition started the match but only lasted 20 minutes after receiving a “harsh tackle” from new Galaxy signing Diego Polenta.

While that seems extremely concerning with the team’s first competitive match a week away, it seems as if the substitution may have been precautionary.

We’ve reached out to try and get an update on Pity’s status. Nothing definitive was given, but we’ve heard it’s nothing serious. While that’s good news overall, it still remains to be seen what his status is in the short-term.

It’s quite interesting that Andrew Carleton was the one to replace Pity for the remainder of the match instead of someone like Tito Villalba, who you’d expect. Perhaps that means something for Carleton’s stock in Frank de Boer’s eyes or maybe it means nothing.

Josef Martinez scored a sensational goal sometime during the match, but it was ruled offside. Here’s the visual evidence:

The only other talking point from the main scrimmage was that of Jeff Larentowicz receiving a red card just before halftime. We do not have video footage of that.

In the second scrimmage of the day, Atlanta’s “reserves” defeated LA Galaxy’s leftovers, 2-0. Tito Villalba and Romario Williams were the goalscorers.

That’s that for preseason. The next time Atlanta United take the field it’ll be in Costa Rica for their first-ever Concacaf Champions League match. That match will be next Thursday against Herediano and kick off around 10:00 p.m. ET. Stay tuned to DSS for information on how to watch that match as soon as becomes available. Popular belief is that Univision Deportes and Yahoo Sports will be the two options, but that hasn’t been officially confirmed.

We leave you with Frank de Boer’s closing thoughts on the preseason trip to LA: