KANSAS CITY, Kan. – The LA Galaxy didn’t get three points on a wild night at Children’s Mercy Park, but their draw with Sporting KC provided the team will a valuable confidence booster heading into the final two matches of the season.
Zlatan Ibrahimović scored his 21st goal of the campaign, while David Bingham made a whopping eight saves as Los Angeles earned a 1-1 draw from a cagey match in rainy Kansas. The home side applied considerable pressure, tallying 27 shots, but the Galaxy held them at bay until Johnny Russell’s finish in the dying minutes.
Despite Sporting’s success going forward, the Galaxy had their opportunities including a Daniel Steres goal negated due to video review. With plenty of opportunities, the Galaxy felt understandably proud of the result.
“We gutted it out. We got a little bit of luck. But then on the other side of it, we had some good moments where we could have been 2-0 at halftime. I didn’t see the VAR. I won’t speak about that,” head coach Dominic Kinnear said. “But even in the second half, we were breaking. We were just misconnecting our passes and it put more pressure on us and we couldn’t really get out. At times when we did, we looked pretty comfortable. Give credit to them, they were kind of putting their foot on the gas. Give credit to us, we defended for everything.”
With just two games remaining in the season, the Galaxy find themselves just a single point back of Real Salt Lake for the final playoff berth. Salt Lake dropped a 4-1 result at home to Portland Timbers on Saturday and will close out the season with matches against New England Revolution (home) and the Timbers (away).
Although the Galaxy will need a bit of misfortune to befall Salt Lake to reach the postseason, the team understands that they’ll need to be aggressive in their final two games of the season.
“We have to go win these next two games either way. I think that does help us. Any dropped points from those guys helps us. We still have to go and get six points out of these next two games.”
Added Bingham, “We have to win [the final two games] That’s the bottom line. We have to go in to Minnesota and we have to come out with three points. That’s the only thing we’re going to be looking forward to this next week and a half.”
