Marking their most valuable of four Cali Clasico wins this season, LA Galaxy secured their spot in the Leagues Cup knockout stages with a stunning 2-1 comeback victory over San Jose Earthquakes in their opening match of the tournament at PayPal Park on Wednesday night.
As expected, Galaxy dominated first-half possession from the moment the match kicked off and didn’t have any issue creating chances with it either. Within 10 minutes, Earthquakes goalkeeper William Yarbrough was forced into a massive point-blank double save, first denying Gabriel Pec, then Riqui Puig by using his face as a brick wall.
Happy to play against the ball, San Jose created two big chances of their own as they grew into the game, beginning to cause LA problems with their high press. Amahl Pellegrino and then Carlos Gruezo had close-range shots saved by Galaxy’s Novak Mićović.
Once Puig skied his shot on another quality opportunity, the feeling was that of a chance-ridden half which couldn’t produce a goal.
Not to worry, with Galaxy’s Killa P’s unable to find their final product, fellow attacker Diego Fagúndez stepped up with a Goal of the Tournament nominee to open the scoring for LA late in the half. After seeing Yarbrough produce a couple of wonder saves early on, Fagundez gave the Quakes shot-stopper no chance to hold onto his clean sheet into halftime.
Chance creation slowed in the second half correlated with an increased chunk of possession from San Jose. Still, equalizing opportunities presented themselves to the Quakes such as Pellegrino missing a flick-header from within the six-yard box.
Just as it had in the first half, however, San Jose’s best chances resulted from forcing high turnovers. In the 75th minute, Earthquakes captain Jackson Yuiell picked off Gastón Brugman’s pass to spring Jeremy Ebobisse into a goalscoring position. Following up his best performance of the season against Chivas, Ebobisse made no mistake with his finish, equalizing with his second goal in as many games
Unfortunately for the Quakes, the parallels didn’t stop there as San Jose conceded a late result-changing goal in the final minutes of the match once again.
Eighty-nine minutes into the game, Puig picked out fullback Miki Yamane with a stunning crossfield second assist worthy of a star playmaker. Without breaking stride, the Japanese international first-timed his cross back from whence it came for Miguel Berry to tap in on the doorstep.
As a result, Galaxy booked their ticket to the Round of 32 with an opening victory where they will face a team from group West 6 to be determined by future results. If LA ends up playing Club Necaxa, they will get the opportunity to host the match on Aug. 7 or 8. Otherwise, Galaxy will enter the knockout stages on the road at Seattle or Minnesota.
