Galaxy pull away in 2nd half to beat Club Tijuana in Leagues Cup opener

CARSON — Wins and consistent play have been difficult for the reigning MLS Cup champion Galaxy to find this season.

The Leagues Cup tournament offers the team an opportunity to play for a trophy and possibly turn its dismal season around.

In Thursday night’s opener against Club Tijuana, things again weren’t easy thanks to rising Mexican star Gilberto Mora, but the Galaxy managed to survive, eventually pulling away for a 5-2 win to become the eighth MLS team to win their tournament opener this week.

“I think some of our attacking guys sniffed in the game that there was lots of goals there to be had, so I felt like we were a little stretched apart defensively at the times and giving up too much space in between our lines,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “It was an interesting game, trying to set up things where we felt like we could create attacks, finish attacks and get into goal-scoring opportunities.”

With the win and the five-goal outburst, the Galaxy will head into their second game in third place in the MLS portion of the tournament standings. The 36-team Leagues Cup has a different format this year. The three group-stage or “Phase One” games all pit MLS teams against Liga MX squads. At the end of Phase One, the top four teams in each league will advance to the quarterfinals.

With the score tied at 2-2, Joseph Paintsil put the Galaxy ahead to stay in the 65th minute off an assist from Matheus Nascimento. In a tournament, where goals are scored is one of the key tiebreakers, Marco Reus (82nd minute) and Paintsil (91st) added late goals.

If it weren’t for Tijuana’s Gilberto Mora, the Galaxy might have had a cakewalk.

However, each time the hosts took a lead, the 16-year-old Mora made an impact. In the 21st minute, he scored on a shot from atop the 18-yard box. In the second half, Mora added another distance goal, scoring from approximately 25 yards out to knot the score at 2-all.

“We were talking about this in the office, you would never in a million years watch that game and think that there was a 16-year-old player on the field,” Vanney said of Mora. “There was pros on the field and he was absolutely one of them.

“He’s got class, calm, left foot, right foot. Great feel for the game.”

The first half got off to a wild start. The Galaxy earned a pair of penalties in the first 35 minutes but took care of them differently. In the 17th minute, Nascimento converted his attempt after a hand ball violation was called against Tijuana. In the 33rd minute, Paintsil stepped up after getting pulled down by a Tijuana defender, but his attempt was saved by Tijuana goalkeeper José Rodríguez to keep the score level at 1-1.

Gabriel Pec gave the Galaxy a 2-1 advantage heading into halftime with a 30-yard shot that skipped past Rodriguez in the 39th minute.

The Galaxy had several opportunities to blow the game open, but Paintsil’s missed penalty kick and another late chance that was squandered kept Tijuana alive until the late stages of the game.

“The game had a lot of ebbs and flows, inside of it, which made it an interesting game,” Vanney said. “But again, the qualities of our guys were able to see it out, especially when they were able to get space and play in transition.”

This was the first meeting between the teams since the quarterfinals of the 2014 CONCACAF Champions League.

The Galaxy will resume Phase One play on Sunday night at home against Cruz Azul (7:30 p.m.) and conclude it on Thursday against Santos Laguna (8 p.m.), with both games to be played at Dignity Health Sports Park.