LA Galaxy draw with Seattle as playoffs approach in Landon Donovan’s last regular season home game- October 2014
The two best teams in the MLS faced off against each other to battle for the best record in the Western Conference at the Stub Hub Center in LA. The LA Galaxy took on the Seattle Sounders on what would be Landon Donovan’s final regular season home game of his career. Donovan was emotional and received a nice pre and post match ceremony with video highlights, gifts and players showing their appreciation. He had some of his favorite live music performing as The Foo Fighters played some pre-game music and his favorite group Boyz to Men sang the National Anthem.
The play was fast and furious from start to finish. Both teams played with a lot of intensity, pace, and skill. The Galaxy struck first in the ending seconds of extra time in the first half. Baggio Husidic found himself at the right place and right time on a cross that wasn’t cleared properly by the Sounders defense. He controlled the ball and threaded a low left footed shot to the far post to put the Galaxy up 1-0 to end the first half. Donovan had a great chance to score on a header that bounced off the cross bar and Robbi Keane had an excellent scoring chance or two. The Seattle defense namely Zach Scott and Chat Marshall made it very tough on Los Angeles as they also held Gyasi Zardes in check.
In the 49’ minute, Husidic threaded a square pass at the top of the box to Marcelo Sarvas who blasted a missile to the upper far post just past the outstretched fingers of the Sounders keeper Stefan Frei.
Seattle were far from laying down and giving this game to the Galaxy. In the 69’ minute, Clint Dempsey was set up from a beautiful cross by National teammate DeAndre Yedlin and hammered a left footed shot by the upper near post. Three minutes later, Lamar Neagle raced down the right side receiving a perfectly threaded pass from Obafemi Martins and hit a low, skidding ball right through the keeper to tie the score at 2-2. Martins was all over the field and had some good scoring opportunities himself during the game besides assisting on both goals.
Omar Gonzalez will miss the next game in Seattle on Oct. 25th which will put a lot of pressure on the Galaxy defense next week. He got a yellow card in the first half with an aggressive tackle and foolishly did the same thing in the second half that gave him his second yellow card of the night. The Galaxy need a win to have the best record in the MLS. The playoffs start soon. More info and tickets on the link below.
http://www.lagalaxy.com/tickets/playoffs