Zlatan Ibrahimović did his best to get the Galaxy a result against Sporting Kansas City on Sunday.
Sporting Kansas City 2- Los Angeles Galaxy 0
By Ivan Yeo
The LA Galaxy got a reality check of sorts on Sunday evening.
As great as last week’s game against LAFC was for the Galaxy and Ibrahimovic, they know that not every match is going to be last Saturday’s match. The Galaxy know they can’t afford to be playing from behind and have your superstar players bailing you out every time. Sporting Kansas City rammed that point home on Sunday evening, as two second half goals inside a five-minute span, plus some clutch keeper play by Tim Melia enabled Kansas City to leave StubHub Center with a 2-0 win.
“We keep conceding kind of easy goals. It’s not just the defense you have to blame,” Galaxy defender Ashley Cole said. “I think we have to look as a team to see the reasons why they are counterattacking every time. It’s a tough loss to take today, but credit to them. They are a very good team.”
Not that Ibrahimovic didn’t try his best to recreate the magic from last week’s debut. Ibrahimovic came in the 62nd minute following another round of “we want Zlatan” chants and tried to get the Galaxy out of its latest predicament. Ibrahimovic’s first shot came in the 76th minute, as he let loose a volley similar to his spectacular 38-yard volley last week, only this one was a laser straight at goal, and Melia didn’t flich one bit, calmly parrying the ball away from goal and Ike Opara cleared it out of the box.
Five minutes later, Ibrahimovic had the ball a little deeper on Kansas City’s side. Ibrahimovic made a cutting move inside to try and evade Roger Espinoza, the move bought Ibrahimovic some space and let fired another laser of a volley, but again Melia got his hands on the shot and collected the ball before Ola Kamara had a chance at a potential rebound shot. Ibrahimovic’s last chance at a goal came a minute later, as the Galaxy were awarded a free kick on the left side and Ibrahimovic sent the shot right on frame, but again, Melia was not to be denied, as he caught the ball and fell on it to ensure possession for Kansas City.
“He’s not going to work miracles every time he steps on the field, but certainly he forced the goalkeeper into some saves,” Galaxy head coach Sigi Schmid said. “He’s still getting his full touch and fitness back, and so each week hopefully it’ll be a little more that we can play him.”
After a scores first half, and with Ibrahimovic’s presence looming, Kansas City knew they had to take control of the match soon, and got their chance starting in the 56th minute. Johnny Russell sent a corner kick into the box, Kamara headed a ball down, but all that did was leave a sitter and Daniel Salloi cashed in on the opportunity as he buried the shot near post to break the scoreless deadlock. Russell got on the scoresheet himself five minutes later, as he dribbled from the left side into the penalty area, split a pair of defenders, keeper David Bingham came off his line and Russell sent the shot past Bingham far post to double Kansas City’s advantage.
“To be able to keep the ball as we did and build out of the back in another team’s stadium and own the ball if you will, it was excellent on our part to be able to do that in this type of environment against this type of team,” Sporting Kansas City head coach Peter Vermes said. “LA has so many different weapons on it that it is not an easy team to play against because they are so good in transition especially from defense to offense and I thought that we handled it pretty well.”
Melia came through between the pipes for Kansas City, but he was also assisted by the framework. In the 36th minute, Ashley Cole crossed a ball into the 18, Chris Pontius headed the ball towards goal but it instead hit off the near post and out of play. Then in the 43rd minute Ashley Cole aimed for the far post, but both Melia and framework denied him, as Melia got his left hand on the ball and pushed it off the post and over the endline.
The framework saved Kansas City one more time in the 65th minute, as Ibrahimovic played a forward ball to Kamara, he backheeled a ball to Romain Alessandrini, who managed to get a shot off before SKC’s Jimmy Medranda could parry the ball away, but Alessandrini’s shot bounced off the crossbar and was eventually cleared out.
“It doesn’t matter if you hit the post. If you don’t score you don’t win,” Ibrahimovic said.
The Galaxy will hit the road for its next match, as they will head to the Windy City for a matchup with the Chicago Fire. Ibrahimovic knows what it will take for the Galaxy to come out on top.
“We need to focus more from the beginning and be more stable in our game,” Ibrahimovic said. “We need to be more hungry from the beginning.”
LA Galaxy
Sporting Kansas City
