MLS: LA Galaxy 1-2 Sporting KC
Opara and Roger Espinoza score first-half goals for the visitors; Sporting KC earns first road win over Galaxy since 2010; Sporting KC extends lead atop Western Conference to five points.
Sporting Kansas City coach Vermes:
“It’s always good to get three points wherever you are. Home or away. I thought we’ve had a couple of games at home where we gave up a few points to where we should’ve gotten three, not one. Getting this game on the road makes up for a little bit of that. I thought we played very well in the game. I thought the fact that we scored early, they had a game-plan, they were sitting back and countering us, and the fact that we scored early, it made them rethink about what they wanted to do. We got the second one, and I knew at the second-half that they were going to come out and put everything on us, and they were going to step up high. It kind of changed for them, and I thought we handled it well, and at the end we were able to hang on and get the three.
The performances have been there multiple times on the road for us. It’s just matter of sticking some balls in the back of the net. We’ve created chances in past games, but we’ve just been off here and there. Tonight I think it was another pretty complete performance on the road. especially in the first half I thought we were very very good building out of the back, our movement on the was good as well. We stuck a couple in. second half obviously they needed to push the game and they did so and we did what we had to to get the result.”
LA Galaxy coach Onalfo
“I made a statement in the Chicago game that at that point we became a team, but we happened to have five of how many games on the road at that point. So if we would have had those games at home, I think it is fair to say we probably would have had more wins at home but now every game is different. You guys can look at the stats, I mean obviously we have to win our games at home. That is an important part of this all, but it is also circumstances that go into each game and we were tired playing a team that didn’t play on Wednesday, and then we gifted two easy goals and that was the difference.
At home, we’re not getting it together like we are away. we don’t know why, but it’s something we have to look at in the video and change something. It’s not good, but we’ll change it up. I think it’s probably more of an understanding of the game. We set out our game plan with the tactics, and sometimes it probably gets lost in translation. This is a young team, and hopefully it will learn from it.”
