Monday, July 13, 2020

Epic Comeback (7/13)

BACK TO WORK AT HOME, CA -- The last 156 times, a team that trailed by 2 goals and went down a man went on to lose, as expected.  Well, that changed today as D.C. United rallied in the second half to score twice to stun Toronto FC, 2-2, in the Group C match.  DC played the entire 2nd half with 10 men and TOR controlled possession but sub Federico Higuain got DC on the board in the 84' with a great chip over the GK and Federic Brilliant scored a minute into stoppage time.  It ruined a "brilliant" performance from TOR's Ayo Aknola (2 goals) and Alejandro Pozuelo (2 assists) but provided fireworks after the match.

Both LA teams have a very leaky defense but the difference is Los Angeles Football Club, even with Carlos Vela, knows how to score and score often.  The Houston Dynamo's Memo Rodriguez scored twice in the first half around LAFC's Bradley Wright-Phillips' first goal in his first appearance for LAFC.  VAR helped and overruled an offside and HOU got their 3rd goal.  In the second half, LAFC scored twice and ended with 71.5% possession in the 3-3 draw.  This was the 2nd straight match LAFC allowed 3 goals (both 3-3 draws).

The LA Galaxy gave up two sloppy goals in the second half and Chicharito's first MLS goal was of little consolation after his PK was saved in the 12'.  The Portland Timbers vaulted to the top of Group F with a 2-1 win despite being down a man the last 15 minutes.

Will coaches want to talk with TV announcers?  POR's coach watched his team seemingly give up a goal in the 81' while talking with FS1 but VAR intervened and ruled offsides denying Gordon Wild's first goal on his first touch in his first minute of MLS play.  This was after yesterday when COL's coach watched his team give up a goal while talking with ESPN.  LA also had a goal disallowed by an offside in the 86'.

LA came up short ending a 2-match streak (and 3 of the past 4) where the trailing team scored the last two goals in the second half.

No one got the TOR-DC or LAFC-HOU draws but 5 did get POR correct leaving Kona Coast Sliders and Kona Coast Fauci's tied for first with 5 ptsBigRedMessi2 is last with one point.

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