Gyasi Zardes got the Galaxy going with his tying goal in the 13th minute.
By Ivan Yeo
It took a while for the Los Angeles Galaxy, but it all came together at the right time.
The Galaxy finally got the chance to have its full lineup on the field, let alone its three stars, Robbie Keane, Steven Gerrard and Giovani Dos Santos, on the field at the same time. The Seattle Sounders on the other hand came into Sunday afternoon’s highly-anticipated match without its top players, as Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins missed Sunday’s match due to injury.
Still, the Sounders took the challenge to the Galaxy, pushing a goal across just 51 seconds into the match. Nevertheless, LA’s vaunted attack answered in a huge way, as goals from Gyasi Zardes, Keane and Dos Santos propelled the Galaxy to a 3-1 win over Seattle at the StubHub Center.
“Obviously we battled back well,” Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena said. “I think on the day I applaud both teams. We shouldn’t be playing games at 1 o’clock in the afternoon in the summer months. This was really challenging for the players and for our team to concede a goal early and have to fight back in these conditions is pretty good. I give them a lot of credit; it was a pretty good effort.”
The win enables LA to vault to second place in the Western Conference, two points shy of the Vancouver Whitecaps for the top spot in the conference. Seattle’s struggles continued, as they lost its seventh match in its last eight games, and while they still hold the last playoff spot in the conference over the Houston Dynamo, that lead is now just by one point.
“I thought we made them work for everything they got,” Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid said. “A little disappointed that the couple of goals we gave up. A little disappointed with a couple of goals that we should have had that we didn’t do well enough with chances and goals change games.”
Despite the absence of Dempsey and Martins, the Sounders showed they weren’t going to be mere foils at the hands of the star-studded Galaxy. Seattle found the back net right at the start of the match, as Erik Friberg sent a cross right into the six-yard box and Chad Barrett got behind Omar Gonzalez and shot a ball past keeper Donovan Ricketts into the back net. Karma however caught up to Barrett right after the goal, as he grabbed his hamstring while celebrating the goal and eventually had to leave the match.
Barrett’s injury was apparently a sign of things to come for the Sounders. LA found the equalizer in the 13th minute, as Juninho sent a ball into the 18-yard box and Zardes’ right-footed shot beat Stefan Frei to the back post to get Los Angeles in the board. Seattle actually had a response in the 30th minute, but a potential go-ahead goal was waived off due to offside.
Just like Seattle had done to them in the opening minutes, the Galaxy found the back net very quickly to start the second half. Gerrard sent a ball for Zardes, who instead dummied it to AJ DeLaGarza on the overlap. DeLaGarza sent a cross into the penalty area, Dos Santos touched a ball to Keane, who immediately fired a one-timer past Frei into the back net to give the Galaxy the lead.
“You could see signs of it,” Keane said of the potent Galaxy attack. “I wouldn’t say that we were at our 100 percent best but it doesn’t really matter when you’re winning games. That’s all that matters.”
“You saw a few combinations today that suggest going forward that could be good. Once everyone is on the same page. … sometimes it takes a little bit of time for the whole team to understand each other. You could see with me and Gio today that there were a few signs that we’ve played together before.”
LA’s newest star sealed the three points in the 64th minute. Sebastian Lletget pounced on a poor pass and fed a ball to Keane, who turned and played a ball forward to Dos Santos, who timed his run jus right. Dos Santos, just days removed from scoring in his first ever game in a Galaxy shirt, tallied in his MLS debut, as he shot a ball past Frei, beating him to the far post.
“I feel very happy. I think it was a difficult game,” Dos Santos said. “We conceded a very early goal in the first half but I think that the team did a great job and I’m happy for my goal and the team’s victory.”
The Galaxy now hit the road for another crucial conference game, this time against third-place FC Dallas at Toyota Center on Saturday evenine. Seattle meanwhile tries again to right the ship at home against Orlando City in another nationally televised Sunday Afternoon tilt.
