LA Galaxy drops another home game, bringing their losing tally to six for the season.
The Los Angeles Galaxy hosted the New England Revolution and their new coach, former Galaxy skipper, Bruce Arena, for their share of action for MLS Pride Week. The Angelinos had not won a home game since April 28th and were looking to set themselves on the winning path once more after having won their previous two matches.
Things started off well for the visitors as they nearly came close to opening the scoring tally at the 7th minute, when Juan Agudelo blew the ball above the goal post and past a fallen Bingham. The visitors maintained a healthy possession of the ball throughout the first minutes of game until that gave way to a more even back and forth between both sides. Things continued on a bad note for the Galaxy when, what appeared like a knee injury, had to force off the field USMNT call-up, Sebastian Lletget. Almost immediately after this action, New England midfielder Luis Caicedo would also find himself on the ground injured after being elbowed by Zlatan. The aggressive plays would continue and at the 24th minute of play, Rev’s defender Andrew Farrell found himself on the receiving end of another Zlatan elbow, leaving Zlatan to find himself on the receiving end of a yellow card for his actions. The Galaxy team had their fair share of opportunities to score, with Zlatan missing a few shots on goal, one of them being a 1v1 against Rev’s goalie, Brad Knighton, and with Uriel Antuna also being denied by Knighton after a head-to-head between the two. Although the Galaxy had more ball possession for the remainder of the game, the Rev’s were able to chalk one up on the scoring board when at the 45th minute, Christian Penilla’s potent shot got past David Bingham for the 1-0.
For the second half, Coach Guillermo Barros Schelotto switched things up a little and subbed off Uriel Antuna, who had been having an unusually slow game, for another Mexican youngster, Efrain Alvarez. The second half would start off with the home team controlling the ball more and creating more opportunities. However, even with this, they still were not able to capitalize on their opportunities and went down 2-0 after a brilliant goal by New England’s Teal Bunbury at the 60th minute. Even still, the home team kept insisting but it was to no avail. Eventually, at the 84th minute, the Galaxy were able to shorten the Rev’s lead after an amazing individual effort by Zlatan led to another of his signature, bicycle-kick goals. Unfortunately for Zlatan and the Galaxy however, they couldn’t capitalize any further and the final score read 2-1 in favor of the visiting New England Revolution.
After the game, both Zlatan and Jonathan Dos Santos expressed frustration with how the game went, with both men generally blaming themselves and “Jona” in particular blaming their lack of attention to “the small details” as being their ultimate undoing. The LA Galaxy will have to wait until June 22nd for another regular season game when they head out to Ohio to take on FC Cincinnati. New England for their part will take on Eastern Conference rival and conference leader, Philadelphia Union, on January 26th.
