Orange County SC is on break in USL play yet again this weekend, but the other local USL side, LA Galaxy II, keep plugging along. On Saturday, they'll
Orange County SC is on break in USL play yet again this weekend, but the other local USL side, LA Galaxy II, keep plugging along. On Saturday, they’ll be in Texas once again to play Rio Grande Valley FC for the second time in the 2017 season.
In the teams’ previous meeting, just under a month ago, Los Dos tied RGVFC 1-1 at H-E-B Park. Justin Dhillon scored the second-half equalizer for LA, and seems to be growing more comfortable at the USL level each week.
And while Galaxy II indirectly helped their MLS side advance in U.S. Open Cup play on Wednesday, with most of the lineup being either periodic or regular Galaxy II players this season, it seems like the USL team will continue to use a very young lineup in league play. Bradford Jamieson IV and Ariel Lassiter can provide a boost to the USL team and will most likely play a part in the team’s season later this year, but Mike Munoz’s Galaxy II lineup has hovered around the 20-year-old average mark for a few weeks now, and looks set to continue that path. The result is that a very young team will likely line up against RGVFC. At the same time, the more those players see action now, the more the Galaxy organization will have the information to know if they can develop into good professional players, which is the ultimate project for the team.
Much like Galaxy II, RGVFC was not actually in the U.S. Open Cup this year, but the team did loan several players up to affiliate club Houston Dynamo for their Open Cup game this week. And frankly, given the travel involved and the more USL-experienced group RGVFC usually plays with, they’ll either opt to play those regulars on short rest or have to rotate the lineup and field some guys who haven’t gotten a lot of playing time on Saturday. Either way, that could give the LA lineup, inexperienced or not, a path to a result.
RGVFC hosts LA Galaxy II at H-E-B Park on Saturday in Texas. The game is scheduled to kick off at 5:30 pm PT. You can watch the game on YouTube or USL’s Matchcenter.
