After Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored twice after going down to 10-men, the LA Galaxy had a chance to claim all three points against the Seattle Sounders. But a late Jorgen Skjelvik own goal made it 2-2 and forced a share of spoils.
“I think the game was very weird because you never think before the game after one minute you will get one player out, a red card,” Guillermo Barros Schelotto said.
“I think the team figured out very well what to do. We played almost 90 minutes with 10 men. We played well.
With these two goals, Ibrahimovic now becomes the third player in MLS history to score 20+ goals in consecutive seasons.
There is still a lot of congestion in the middle of the Western Conference standings. The Galaxy remain in third on 41 points, though, they are only one point behind Minnesota United.
GBS rotated his attacking core again for this match against Seattle. Favio Alvarez returned to the number 10 role, while Uriel Antuna slotted back to the right-wing.
Things did not go according to plan for the Galaxy to begin the match. After only six minutes had eclipsed, Daniel Steres brought down Raul Ruidiaz. Steres was shown a straight red card for a denial of a goal-scoring opportunity, and LA had top play man down for 84 minutes.
Four minutes after the Steres red card, Jonathan Dos Santos appeared to have won a penalty. But after video review, it was deemed that JDS handled the ball inside the area while fighting to get past Seattle defenders.
Cristian Pavón nearly scored late in the opening half but Stefan Frei made a great save to keep things level.
But the road team finally broke the deadlock three minutes before the halftime interval. The Galaxy’s defense was still tracking back from the earlier opportunity and were unable to keep out a Raul Ruidiaz effort from the edge of the box.
Ibrahimovic scores twice, give up freak own goal
There was only a minute left before the halftime interval when Ibrahimovic netted his first goal of the match at the far post. Sebastian Lletget had plenty of time to send in a sublime cross towards the Swedish striker. Ibrahimovic outmuscled his defender and headed back the other way.
Five minutes after the hour mark, the veteran forward was hauled down inside the box and was immediately awarded a penalty. Ibrahimovic stepped up to the spot from 12-yards away and slotted home his shot past a diving Frei.
Moments later, Ibrahimovic should have put away an effort to complete his hattrick. Uriel Antuna played in a nice pass, but the 37-year-old could not find the back of the net.
The Galaxy scored a fluke own goal with ten minutes left in the match. David Bingham came well outside the box to try and cut down a Seattle attack. The ball bounced off of him and redirected off of Jorgen Skjelvik and rolled into the net.
“But still we were good with one less, we did a good job,” Ibrahimovic said. “The guys should have all the credit they can get because it’s not easy to play with one less.
“We got the one point, could have gotten three, but at the end I think it was a good result.”
Next Up
After their Leagues Cup semi-finals against Cruz Azul on Tuesday, the Galaxy face off against LAFC for the second and final time this season. Kickoff for that match next Sunday is scheduled for 7:30 PM PST.
