LA Galaxy Fall to Portland Timbers at Dignity Health Sports Park
LOS ANGELES (Sunday, April 27, 2025) – Continuing their 2025 MLS Regular Season campaign, the LA Galaxy fell 4-2 to the Portland Timbers before 21,215 fans at Dignity Health Sports Park on Sunday evening.
LA Galaxy Against Portland Timbers
Sunday’s match marked the 40th meeting across all competitions between the Galaxy and the Portland Timbers, with the all-time series 15-15-10. Against Portland, LA holds a 14-13-10 record in league play and a 1-2-0 record in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. In two meetings between the LA and Portland during the 2025 campaign, the Galaxy held an 0-1-1 record. In 20 all-time regular-season matches played at home against the Timbers at Dignity Health Sports Park, the Galaxy hold a 10-5-5 record.
Goal-Scoring Plays
POR – David Da Costa (Antony), 38th minute: Working down the left end line, Antony lofted a cross into the box that David Da Costa volleyed into the back of the net.
POR – Santiago Moreno (Antony), 53rd minute: Santiago Moreno received a pass inside the penalty area and his low shot was struck into the bottom corner.
POR – Kevin Kelsy (Antony), 63rd minute: Kevin Kelsy’s first-time shot from the middle of the box was fired in off the underside of the crossbar.
LA – Christian Ramirez (Joseph Paintsil, Marco Reus), 67th minute: Marco Reus delivered a through ball that released Joseph Paintsil down the left flank. Paintsil’s ensuing cross into the box was volleyed past James Pantemis by a diving Christian Ramirez.
LA – Marco Reus (Christian Ramirez, Gabriel Pec), 69th minute: Gabriel Pec passed the ball back to Christian Ramirez, who laid the ball into the path of Marco Reus. The German midfielder took a touch and calmly finished his shot into the lower corner of the goal.
POR – Jonathan Rodriguez (Penalty Kick), 76th minute: Following a foul inside the penalty area, Jonathan Rodriguez’s ensuing penalty-kick effort was fired into the upper corner.
Postgame Notes
Sunday’s match marked the 40th meeting across all competitions between the Galaxy and the Portland Timbers, with the all-time series 15-15-10.
Against Portland, LA holds a 14-13-10 record in league play and a 1-2-0 record in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
In two meetings between the LA and Portland during the 2025 campaign, the Galaxy held an 0-1-1 record.
In 20 all-time regular-season matches played at home against the Timbers at Dignity Health Sports Park, the Galaxy hold a 10-5-5 record.
In their last 10 regular-season matches played against the Timbers dating back to July 30, 2021, the Galaxy hold a 4-2-4 record (21 GF, 18 GA).
Christian Ramirez tallied his team-leading fifth goal across all competitions during the 2025 campaign in the match against the Timbers.
Marco Reus recorded his first goal and first assist of the 2025 campaign in the match against the Timbers.
Joseph Paintsil tallied his first assist of the 2025 MLS Regular Season in the loss to Portland.
In three career matches played against the Timbers, Paintsil has logged two goals and four assists.
Gabriel Pec notched his second assist across all competitions this season in the match against the Portland Timbers.
Maya Yoshida made his first appearance for the Galaxy since coming off injured in the match against Tigres UANL on April 5.
Next Game
Next up, the LA Galaxy travel to face Sporting Kansas City at Children’s Mercy Park on Sunday, May 4 (4:00 p.m. PT; MLS Season Pass).
2025 MLS Regular Season
LA Galaxy (0-7-3; 3 pts) vs. Portland Timbers (5-2-3; 18 pts)
Sunday, April 27, 2025 – Dignity Health Sports Park (Los Angeles)
Goals by Half 1 2 F
LA Galaxy 0 2 2
Portland Timbers 1 3 4
Scoring Summary:
POR: Da Costa (Antony), 38
POR: Moreno (Antony), 53
POR: Kelsy (Antony), 63
LA: Ramirez (Paintsil, Reus), 67
LA: Reus (Ramirez, Pec ), 69
POR: Rodriguez (penalty kick), 76
Lineups:
LA: GK John McCarthy; D Miki Yamane, D Emiro Garcés (Mauricio Cuevas, 90), D Zanka (Maya Yoshida, 71), D John Nelson; M Edwin Cerrillo (Lucas Sanabria, 60), M Isaiah Parente (Julián Aude, 60), M Diego Fagundez (C) (Marco Reus, 60), F Joseph Paintsil, F Gabriel Pec, F Christian Ramirez
Substitutes Not Used: GK Novak Mićović; M Tucker Lepley, F Miguel Berry, F Matheus Nascimento
POR: GK James Pantemis; D Kamal Miller ©, D Finn Surman, D Juan Mosquera (Eric Miller, 80), D Antony (Jonathan Rodriguez, 71), D Jimer Fory; M David Ayala, M Joao Ortiz (Omir Fernandez, 70), M David Da Costa, M Santiago Moreno, F Kevin Kelsy (Felipe Mora, 71)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Maxime Crepeau; D Claudio Bravo, D Dario Zuparic; F Ariel Lassiter
Referee: Filip Dujic
Assistant Referees: Felisha Mariscal, Chris Wattam
Fourth Official: Malik Badawi
VAR: Edvin Jurisevic
Weather: Cloudy, 61 degrees
Attendance: 21,215
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH GREG VANNEY
On the current squad and prospects for the summer transfer window:
“How do I feel about the current squad? You know I trust the guys, and I like them. I feel like we have some good moments and some good stretches and then we are a little shaky and we sometimes create our own issues and sometimes we have some tough moments. But I like our group. We’ve got to keep working and find the solutions inside of our group to help us turn the results around. Thank you for your question.”
On how to keep the team motivated:
“We keep the team motivated by just trying to keep our objectives clear. Find the right solutions inside of our group to be able to step on the field with confidence in the next game, and preparing them, seeing the opposition and trying to understand exactly what the solutions are going into the next game to try to win each one of these games. You know, it’s all in preparation and trying to set these guys up to be as successful as possible and keeping them looking forward. Thanks for your question.”
On being in position to win:
“Yeah, you know, I felt there were stretches in the first game, first half, we had some opportunities to be really dangerous to open the scoring, and we let some slip away that looked like they were going to be really promising. And one instance towards the end of the half when I feel like we are pretty in control, and they are not really going anywhere and the game’s in front of us most of the time. We get opened up and they end up in our box and we don’t deal with the situation, and now we’re going into halftime. While I didn’t feel like we were necessarily super sharp or super on it in the first half, I felt like we were controlled and we were fine, right — and we were getting what I thought was the better looks through the half, even though I felt like we still were a little tight. It didn’t feel like it was smooth for us and free. I felt like we were a little bit tight. The objective in the second half was to come out and try to get us out of our heads a little bit, see if we could get the ball moving. Get the game moving forward a little bit quicker, and then we concede after that. Again, we shifted the group, which was the intention as we got in about ten minutes into the half. We were going to start to shift some pieces around, and we shifted around. We got Marco in. We sat him a little lower. We put some runners in front of him so he could release some of our attacks, and I felt like we started to really build speed and momentum into the game. And obviously we started to build ourselves back in the game at 3-2, and I felt like we had all the momentum and we were going to keep creating chances, and just out of the blue is a penalty call that I don’t — I haven’t seen it, but I’m sure in the run of it live, I didn’t see a penalty. It felt like a pretty even challenge of which they were going on around the field many a times. I’d have to see it again to have a stronger opinion. But to me from where I was, it just didn’t seem — at best, at best, it was 50/50. And you call it, it’s hard to overturn. You don’t call it, and nobody says anything, ever. And those should not dictate games; and it does because at 4-2 it’s a much bigger hill to climb, given our time. And it just took the momentum, and for me a bit, the steam, out of the building and the momentum out of the team a little bit. After that, we kept fighting, and we still had chances. We hit the crossbar and we do some other things, and the guys kept pushing. So it was also, for me, to look at some things. I’ve got to find a solution inside of our group. We’ve got to win the midfield in these games and we’ve got to be able to get ourselves moving, I think, a little bit more freely. I think sometimes we feel like we keep going to sometimes the simple basic option when we need to be more confident to play through the line and build speed to get ourselves moving with numbers into attacks. Defensively, we were pretty clean through stretches of it, and then we just make one mistake and then it feels like the momentum is against us again, and then the others come. We’ve got to be way tougher, I don’t know if that’s the word. But in transition moments, it’s just too easy to get out from us. We don’t foul. We don’t impose ourselves in some of these situations and turns — what looks like we have numbers in between the ball and the attack, and we can impede it or we can, again, end it. We’re kind of a little naïve in those moments, and then we’re dealing with things in our half and deep in our half. There’s things like that that we need to clean up because we’re just leaving ourselves vulnerable over 90 minutes.
On changing the mindset of midfield players:
“It’s tough to say change is a mindset but yes. I mean, we have to be harder to play against in the midfield. We have to be more brave to play forward sometimes in the midfield. We’ve got to create more density in there and just be harder. I feel like teams foul us through the midfield a lot to slow us down and we just let teams kind of run through us through the midfield. We need to be sturdier. The spine of our team needs to be sturdier, and needs to be, again, more present. And I think it comes from confidence. I think it comes from, again, mindset in some ways, and I feel like we’re being a little shy in there and we need to be a little more brave and impose ourselves in there. The game is a lot of times won and lost in the middle of the field, especially with the way we go about doing things, but it’s also in transitions and all these moments. A lot of things are won and lost in the middle of the field, and we have to be able to really control and impose ourselves in that space better.”
On Marco Reus’s impact on the game:
“I think he [Marco Reus] can. It’s something that I have to calculate, and it’s on me to figure out the right solution with Marco defensively and attacking-wise and allowing him to run and dictate our game. Today we shifted it to put an extra defender kind of behind him and to allow that. Those are things that I’m looking within our group now to figure out how do we win the midfield, and how do we continue to create chances to get our guys in the best positions to go score goals and win things. Some of that is looking at some of those things. But you know Marco’s quality has to be a solution for us, but we also have to do some of the work for him and with him and around him so that we can be steady on both sides of the ball. Because it’s a big ask for him to do both of those things for 60 to 90 minutes. You know, he just came off of being injured. So my goal was to set up the game for him to come in and do what he did. I was just hoping it wasn’t from three. But yeah, that has to be one of the solutions for sure.”
On his message to fans who are frustrated with the season to-date:
“I understand their frustration. It’s all of us. We’re all frustrated. Because you come off such a high in 2024. The last thing you want to be is digging yourself out of a hole in 2025 right off the bat. And so I get it. I ask just support and patience. We’ve got to find solutions inside of our group. We lost some really important players, especially in these key areas that I’m talking about and experience and things like that. And so, support and patience. We’re going to find solutions, and we’re going to keep building within the roster as much as we can. Where we can create financial space to be able to do that in the right types of players, we will. We know what our formula looks like. We’ve got to keep building towards it, and with the current group, it’s on me to keep working toward solutions. Now, we’re healthier: Maya back, Isaac back, guys like that. We have to find a solution to start building momentum. The season is not done at all. If we can just get on the right side of a little bit of momentum, then you can get yourself right back in this thing pretty quickly. I think there’s still a ton to play for. Again, just inside of this group of players, we’re trying to find the right solutions, and we just have a group that some guys are having to take much more responsibility than they have had to take on in the past in order to be here at the L.A. Galaxy at the champion — home of the champion, and now you have the pressure to take on some things that some of these guys have never had to do before. So we need to build them up, and I need to keep working with guys to bring them forward and to trust them and to put them out there to grow. And I’m confident these guys can get there. But we’ve got to keep working through it and dig through it. I completely understand it. I’m with them. But I’m focusing on solutions inside of this to try to keep moving our group to where we want to be. We want to be fighting for the seventh ring, right. We’re not there right this minute but we’re going to build towards it and we’re going to get there but I can’t tell you we’re there today, that’s for sure.”
On the competition streak ahead and where the team could be by the end of May:
“You know, two things. One thing, we have to continue to build clarity on how we can be successful as a group and what that’s going to look like for us and resiliency because it’s three road games. We have to go on the road and really fight and be resilient and be tough and find solutions inside of these games. But with all of these road games, if we can build that type of clarity and resiliency, there are lots of home games and stretches of home games from us where we are going to have to attack those to go get points as well. So there’s ways we can grow in this next phase and go dig out some points and compete and fight together as a group, and come home in a better, stronger position to try to take the home points that are going to come from being on the road, right. You’ve got to make up the balance of this at some point, and so this is an opportunity for us just to dig deep and go out there and depend on each other and trust in each other and get some results and come home and build on that. So one game at a time at a time for us is kind of where our mindset is right now.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER MARCO REUS
On what the team needs to start winning again:
“Start winning. Today, especially when I think about it, the 4-2, this reminds me how we play in the season, it’s like a roller coaster, we have a free kick against us, and we have two minutes, three minutes time to be organized in this situation. And then it’s just one long ball, and we receive a penalty. These small details cost you at the end, like a big comeback, because we were there. We shift the momentum to our side. But this is what I mean if we play so naïve in some situations, especially when we are there, when we have the momentum on our side, after the two, three, and then these kind of situations, we are not — how I can say it — aware of these situations. We are maybe thinking, okay, nothing — nothing will happen and suddenly it’s a penalty and we are out of the game. So, yeah, it’s details. Most of the time, it’s details. It starts here in your head. The most important thing is to be ready for 90, 95 minutes, and yeah, we have too much in the game situations when we are not there.
On his role in resetting the momentum on the field:
“I don’t know, always I try, when I’m in, I always try to have impact in the game. I have a little bit the feeling that we are at the moment, we are squared to make mistakes. And like I said before to the other young guys, 90 percent, it starts with the head. So then suddenly in the second half we play more forward; we overplay from positions; we don’t play A to B, from B to C. In these kind of situations, it’s hard for the opposite team to defend when you overplay position. Yeah, when you are just there, when you are active, and sometimes we are not active. We are proactive, and we are just waiting maybe for a situation that maybe can happen. But in soccer, especially when you play at home, you have to be more active. You have to believe really more in yourself as a team with the fans in your back. So today was really, really disappointing because like how we concede the goals, it’s really — it’s too easy for us. And yeah, but like I said before, this is sometimes in life, s–t happens, and we have to step up and be positive, and then we go again and try to win our first game next week.”
On the penalty kick against the Galaxy:
“For me it was a penalty and we don’t have to speak about the penalty. We have to speak about ten seconds before. So why we are not ready to receive the ball when the ball is five seconds in the air. So we have enough time to be organized, and these are the details that makes the difference because we have the momentum on our side in these moments and then we give away immediately and then the game is finished. So for me we don’t have to speak about the penalty. We have to speak about, okay, how we can — how aware we can be in these situations, how we can see the opponents.”
On the mentality the team needs to win games:
“We need every game, every day, in the training mentality. It starts in the training. I said to the guys last week, ‘the training has to be more with more quality, every single day.’ Because when you play with more quality in each of the training every day, then you can do it from this for the weekend. And John, yeah, of course, we need more mentality, and we have to hate losing. But in the moment, we don’t hate losing. It looks a little bit like this. So we have to be frustrated before the game, not after the game. But like I said, I mean, we are not in a good position. So again, small details. And it’s not like when we lose, we lose because the other team was much much better, no. Because we did mistakes. It’s part of football, yes. But unnecessary mistakes. So if we can stop this, then we start winning. But we have to stop this.”
On how important the next stretch of games are for the team:
“Yeah, we will see. We have three away games. Every game is difficult in this league. But like I said before, we have the quality on this team but we have to show it constantly and not 20 minutes like this and then five minutes this and then we concede a goal and then our heads are down. No, it has to be — the standard has to be higher. And like I said, again, these are small details that make the huge difference in these kind of games like today. But especially on the world, of course, we have to not start because we are still believing but of course this game today was a little bit of a playoff game for us, honestly, because we want to start with a home win today. Yeah, it was not good. Now we have a little bit time off, couple days, and then we start again and try to win the next game.”
LA GALAXY FORWARD CHRISTIAN RAMIREZ
On what needs to change for the team:
“It’s always tough when you’re playing from behind. I think it’s just a mentality shift to not be conservative from the start, and maybe just throw it. Throw yourself at it. I think we’ve started to do that. In the moments in the season when we’ve dictated the game and had the majority of chances, we’ve just started to chase people down and — and I guess you could say, in a higher block and pressing, starting with myself and with Joe [Paintsil] and with Gabe [Gabriel Pec] and making life difficult for them and then they started turning the ball over. When teams are building out and they have so much space, then we have that space to use in our advantage. Maybe that’s a solution. Be more aggressive in that sense and trust the guys that are behind you that they are going to make plays or fouls to end plays.”
On if the impact of Marco’s style of play for the team:
“Yeah, I mean, I think he’s finding his feet. He was finding his feet before he had that injury. So that took a step back for him. I think the more we have these weeks of being able to train, the fitter he gets, and his quality continues to show, especially when he gets in between lines and picks out those passes. But he’s a world-class player. Of course we want to have world-class players out there, and I’m sure that he wants to be out there more and produce like he did tonight. So yeah, he’ll be good.”
On if the mentality change comes with more quality play at training:
“Of course. I’m a firm believer of training being tougher than games. That’s how I’ve viewed my whole career. If Marco is saying that, he’s had a historic career, so we all need to step up in that sense. He’s one of the leaders, and if he’s speaking in that fashion, we need to. I support what he says.”
On what he would share with fans who are as frustrated as the team is with the season so far:
“Yeah, I mean, stick with us. We’re going to get through this. I wish I can do a press conference with a win. I want to win so badly for this club and for this city. I didn’t think that we would be in this position. I’ll continue to try and leave it all out there, and the guys continue to do that to be able to turn this around. Because I believe in everybody in that locker room, and some way, somehow we’ll do it. And yeah, we’ll do it some way, somehow.”
On if the team is playing scared:
“I think it goes back to my point of just maybe letting loose and just taking the handcuffs off and just going like we did when we were down and just pressing and making it sort of unorthodox at times of how you’re pressing and causing those high turnovers. But then you also expose yourself for spacing behind. There’s got to be a balance of it. Especially going on the road now for the next three games. But we just have to — we have nothing to lose. We have to stick together and try and figure out the formula to get through it. Greg does a great job of giving us the blueprint and we have to hold our end of the bargain.”
