Not long ago, the Galaxy’s 5-0 victory Saturday to open the Major League Soccer playoffs would have likely been enough to win the home-and-home series.

In the current MLS landscape, that opening win is just that — a win with no aggregate-goal lead for the Galaxy to carry over into today’s second meeting against the Colorado Rapids.

“I miss those days,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “Each of these is one game at a time. There’s never been a more true kind of statement in the playoffs scenario, that’s not a knockout (game).

“First game you win it, it’s great, you put that on your belt, but this is going to be a completely new game, in a completely new environment and both teams will have looked back at this last game and said, ‘OK, what did we like, what didn’t we like, what do we expect?’ And try to prepare our groups for what’s to come. It just takes one result for them to be right back in this thing.”

Each game in the best two-of-three opening round stands as its own result. A win by Colorado (either or regulation or via penalty-kick shootout) will force the series back to Dignity Health Sports Park for a deciding Game 3 on Nov. 9.

The Galaxy turned in a near-perfect performance in the opener, allowing only one shot.

“You have to play each game as it comes to you and you have to play each game to solve the problems of the day and to get the result at the end of the day,” Vanney said.

The Galaxy last visited Colorado on Oct. 2 and came away with a 3-1 win, their first in Colorado since 2017.

“We need to expect a very different team when we go there,” Vanney said. “Obviously, it wasn’t that long ago that we played in Colorado. We’re expecting a more aggressive team, more physical team, a team that’s going to try to disrupt us a lot more, so just being prepared for that.

“They’re either going to come pressing and pressing really hard or they’re going to try to protect themselves a little bit and hurt us on the counter, but I suspect it’s going to be the first and they’re going to come pretty hard and see if they can disrupt us and get something early on and try to get some momentum in this thing. But we just have to be ready and solve the problems that are presented to us and try to create our opportunities on the other side.”

A look ahead

If the Galaxy wrap up the series today, they will be looking at a three-week break before the conference semifinals, which will be played Nov. 23 and 24. The Galaxy would host the winner of the Real Salt Lake-Minnesota United series. Minnesota United won Game 1 on penalty kicks 5-4. The second game is Saturday.