Los Angeles Galaxy head coach Greg Vanney has stated that Ghana winger Joseph Painstil looked refreshed on his return from the international break.
He said this in a post-game interview after Galaxy beat Minnesota United 6-2 to qualify to the Western Conference Finals in the Major League Soccer (MLS) playoffs.
Paintsil and teammates Gabriel Pec and Dejan Joveljic each scored a brace in the big win that marked the Galaxy’s return to the Conference Finals.
In the lead up to the game, the Galaxy had a three week break in their schedule due to a one week league related break coupled with two weeks break for FIFA international games.
Paintsil excused himself from selection to play for Ghana during the FIFA break as the Black Stars competed in the 2025 AFCON qualifiers but drew 1-1 with Angola and lost 2-1 to Niger.
Ghana failed to qualify to next year’s AFCON in the process but Vanney believes Paintsil really benefitted from the break.
“Joe (Joseph Paintsil) knows that in certain occasions there’s going to be certain games where he doesn’t get a ton of touches because …just the way the game flows and sometimes and as I said tonight, patience is a virtue and get yourself in the right spots and good things can come your way and sometimes it’s not the amount of touches, it’s what you do with the few touches you get.”
“Today, he was outstanding, he was in the right spots and he put on a great defensive shift. Today he finished his opportunities, he looked sharp and he looked refreshed a little bit after the break to be fair to him so I was really pleased.”
