LAFC Put Up Four Goals Against a Strong Montreal
Overall, LAFC played a dominant match with another special performance from leading MVP candidate, Carlos Vela.
Overall, LAFC played a dominant match with another special performance from leading MVP candidate, Carlos Vela.
This past Sunday, Los Angeles Football Club took on Sporting Kansas City, in what could be considered a grudge match of sorts as Sporting KC got the better of LAFC last August in a 2-0 loss, as well as a 2-1 defeat in late October towards the end of the inaugural season last year.
If there was ever a season defining match for a club, it would be the one played between LAFC and Real Salt Lake this past Thursday Nov. 1.
On Wednesday, LAFC played Real Salt Lake, a team far too close for comfort in the standings for LAFC, sitting just a point behind at the start of the game. The biggest question surrounding this game was whether the spectators could expect the LAFC of old, prone to dominate their opponents in the midfield and finishing games off with clinical precision, or the LAFC of recent weeks: a team that starts games out strong but folds somewhere in the middle and concedes goals late in the match. Luckily for LAFC fans, the former showed up ready to play, beating Real Salt Lake 2-0 with a brace from recent LAFC signee and hometown hero Christian Ramirez in his full LAFC debut.
The Philadelphia Union came out of the gates with purpose. For the first 15 minutes, the Union were connecting passes and dominating midfield play setting a precedent that LAFC would need to adapt to. It was apparent that LAFC were still missing their attacking maestro in Carlos Vela, who at the time this article was written, was still away on international duty.
The game itself was hard fought, yet nothing in the action was particularly noteworthy, as even the players themselves acknowledged the choppy pace of play, largely due in part to Seattle’s strategy in quelling the play of LAFC star Carlos Vela, the talisman and creative outlet of the team.
In the United States, there is a common misconception that Black people don’t play or even pay attention to soccer, and if you were to look through a generic lens of the American perspective on the sport, it would be easy to fall prey to this notion.