By Juan Carlos Maygua
The defending champions started the season away from home, LA Galaxy was the rival to beat. On paper, it was a manageable task as NYCFC had a few games already on their belt. The home side also had momentum behind them after signing Brazilian star Douglas Costa during the offseason. NYCFC arrived with the championship squad practically untouched, but playing away from home is always difficult regardless of the circumstances.
NYCFC started off with a clear chance from Talles Magno, but he couldn’t head the ball in the correct direction. One could say that the first half was all about NYCFC. Taty did have an opportunity before halftime, but it was once again off target. Sadly, those two opportunities would come back to haunt the team later in the game.
The second half saw LA Galaxy take more control of the game. They started playing from the wings more often as time progressed. Each cross arrived with more danger and the team didn’t connect as much. Javier Hernandez started finding spaces between the defensive line and slowly pushed NYCFC into their own half. Despite this, the team was handling the ball decently and it looked like they were settling for a draw. However, one flaw that I must point out is the inability to play the ball from the back in a clean manner, especially in the closing minutes.
Unfortunately, whenever I see a flaw it tends to become a factor against the team I’m rooting for. As the 90th minute hit the clock, a poor clearance from the defensive line gave LA a chance to build a play close to NYCFC’s box. Hernandez was able to capitalize on that chance turning it into a goal. One could have argued that it was a counter-attack, or that it was the first match of the season and the team wasn’t in sync. But the truth is that the team saw their 9 games unbeaten record come to an end in the most painful way possible, a self-inflicted wound.
Yes, there was a clear penalty in favor of NYCFC that wasn’t called, but replaying LA’s goal would have made a hypothetical draw feel like a defeat as well. The team has to turn the page from this match and work on fixing the mistakes that happened. Vancouver and Comunicaciones will probably be taking notes from this setback, so there’s work to do. We are the defending champions after all.