LA 2-2 Tijuana (LA Wins 3-1 In Penalties)

Fresh off of the back of a derby match against LAFC the LA Galaxy had to play a midweek game in the brand new Leagues Cup against Tijuana in the quarter-final. It was clear from the moment the lineups were announced that the Galaxy were not taking this tournament very seriously as they fielded a team made of a couple starters, mostly bench players, and even some Galaxy II players. With that said, I was actually excited to see this team play even though I couldn’t be there in person. It was nice to see guys like Kai Koreniuk, Tomas Hilliard-Arce, and Don Tchilao get minutes with the first team. Especially now that I’ve grown so accustom to seeing them in a Galaxy II kit. Tijuana on the other hand seemingly were taking this tournament very seriously as they played the exact same 11 players as they did in their 3-1 win against Puebla in the Apertura on Friday. Seeing these lineups, as I said I was excited to see a lot of our younger players, but I was also expecting a not so pretty final score for LA.

The game began exactly as it seemed it would, all Tijuana. However, the Galaxy did a good job of keeping Tijuana from getting a clear look at goal. That was until the 17th minute when off of a corner Tijuana midfielder, Washington Camacho ran right by a tired looking Julian Araujo for an open header that he put just wide at the near post. A quick side note here, I love Julian Araujo he grew up right near my home town and he’s a bright star for both LA and the US National Team’s future, but Schelotto made a mistake by playing him as long as he did, he looked tired from the first whistle of this match, which make sense since he just played a full 90+ minutes vs LAFC on Friday.

Back to the game, in the 24th minute the funniest moment of the match occurred for those of us watching at home, when ESPN commentator Taylor Twellman was talking about playing in a match where you’re trying to prove yourself and he was talking about playing against Owen Hargreaves while Hargreaves was at Bayern Munich, then the other commentator for the match, Jon Champion said, “Whenever I see Owen Hargreaves he’s very similar to you, reminiscing about the day he played against Taylor Twellman.” It’s not an important part of the game or anything I just thought it was a funny moment of banter between the commentators.

In the 27th minute Kai Koreniuk cut in from the left wing, fired a shot to the far post, and Emmanuel Boateng in an effort to get out of the way of the ball deflected it into the back of the net for the opening goal of the match, or at least it seemed. As the assistant referee raised a very late flag for offside, the goal gets called back. But, then after a VAR check ruled Boateng was onside the goal did end up standing, 1-0 LA (even if it was an accident).

In the 33rd minute Tijuana got their goal, that frankly was coming. It came from Camilo Sanvezzo playing a nice ball on the ground into Ariel Nahuelpán who cooly finished the move with a tap in finish into an open net. Another side note, Nahuelpán was troubling the Galaxy the whole game and was definitely Xolos’ best player all night.

Just before the half-time whistle in the 45th minute Tijuana defender, Omar Mendoza passed to Washington Camacho who hit the ball hard and high into the goal for 2-1 Tijuana, he then proceeded to hit the worst dab I’ve seen in my entire life to celebrate.

Half-time score 2-1, Club Tijuana lead. At this point I was thinking we were probably going to get killed 4 or 5-1, as we were gonna have to stop playing tons of defense and actually go forward and attack. Therefore, I was pleasantly to see Dave Romney head in a poorly defended corner for the leveling goal to make it 2-2 in the 54th minute.

There was still a lot of time left though, and where some people might’ve thought, “Oh yay, more time for us to get that winning goal,” I thought, “Oh no, more time for Tijuana to get that winning goal,” Really though, I’m not super cynical for thinking this way, Xolos were the better team most of the game.

In the 70th minute the pressure kept building from Tijuana as Galaxy keeper Matt Lampson tipped a Miller Bolaños effort into the post and away from the goal. Watching on TV this shot looked to me like it was going in, it was a huge relief to see it smack the post.

In 2nd half stoppage time there were some strange moments as an already booked Julian Araujo committed a certainly yellow card worthy challenge just outside of the 18-yard box that originally was given as just a foul and no yellow, after VAR Araujo received a yellow card for it, but then no red was shown despite Araujo having two yellow cards, only after more discussion with VAR refs was a red card shown and Araujo was sent off! (Further proving my point of why Araujo should’ve been subbed off.) The head ref was lucky to have VAR officials in his ear or that could’ve been a huge blunder on potentially giving Araujo two yellows and no red. After that however, the final whistle would blow and the match would head to penalty kicks at a score of 2-2.

Any soccer/football fan is pretty much always nervous when a game heads to penalties and I was no different in watching this one. My nerves only intensified when while Servando Carrasco was trying to take the opening penalty Xolos defender, Diego Braghieri interfered by trying to tell Xolos goalie Manuel Lajud where he thought Carrasco was going to shoot the penalty. But, that didn’t stop Carrasco from burying the penalty into the side net for the 1-0 penalty. Then Cubo Torres took an absurdly long run up that Jon Champion even said was, “starting in Arizona,” just to get the shot stopped by Lampson, 1-0 after one penalty each. After that Galaxy youngster, Efrain Álvarez had his penalty tipped into the post for a fantastic save and an unlucky moment for Efra. Then Ariel Nahuelpán struck his penalty powerful past Lampson to make the shootout 1-1 after two penalties each. Emil Cuello then took just one step for his penalty and hit the shot very poorly with Lajud saving it fairly easily. Now the nerves really returned for me as we yielded control to Tijuana for the first time in the shootout, something you don’t always come back from. Thankfully, Matt Lampson made a fantastic save on Braghieri’s powerful penalty. We stayed level, 1-1 after three each (really bad penalty taking I must add). Emmanuel Boateng then put his penalty in the top right corner sending Lajud the wrong way to make the shootout 2-1. Xolos substitute, Ángel Sepúlveda then hit an awful penalty that Lampson saved, 2-1 after four penalties each, the Galaxy now sit one conversion from going onto the Leagues Cup Semi-Final at Tijuana’s expense. It was up to LA’s captain for the game, Giancarlo González to send us on, he stepped up and with Lajud going the right way he puts it into the top right corner of the net, 3-1 on penalties, game over! Full-time score 2-2, 3-1 on penalties, LA takes it.

Best Performer: Matt Lampson (Having a 75% penalty save rate is unreal)