Seattle Sounders ( 10-9-5, 35 points) forward Raul Ruidiaz scored his first home goal of the season to lead the Sounders to a 5-0 thrashing of the undermanned LA Galaxy (10-9-7, 37points) Saturday afternoon at CenturyLink Field. The Galaxy was without Romain Alessandrini, Michael Ciani, Giovani dos Santos and Jonathan dos Santos due to injuries, while Zlatan Ibrahimovic stayed in LA for rest and recovery.
All that mattered for the Sounders on Saturday was that when the final whistle blew the Rave Green scored more goals than the Galaxy and the win was a club record 6th consecutive victory. Who the opponent had on the field was of little consequence to a team in search of a playoff berth.
“Yeah, we understand the circumstances that are surrounding the Galaxy. So, that’s their issue. Sigi [Schmid] has to solve that. I’m sure he will, he’s a great coach. If you push that aside, what did we think of our performance? How did we feel about our players and what was going on out on the field? I thought well deserved two goals,” said Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer. ” We’ve talked about this – our team has started strong the first 20, 25 minutes of games here recently, and we left our foot off the gas a little bit. I think we let them back in. So, we made a couple of corrections at halftime, tried to get some adjustments made.”
The Sounders began their scoring barrage after just three minutes of play thanks to a Chad Marshall header after a nifty cross from Nicolas Lodeiro that gave the home side the dream start. The Sounders pressed the Galaxy and forced a turnover that led to goal number two when Gustav Svensson collected an errant pass and fed the ball to Harry Shipp who right-footed the ball into the back of the Galaxy net for the 2-0 lead after 18 minutes of play.
Five minutes into the second half Galaxy midfielder Servando Carrasco did the unthinkable when his failed attempt to clear a Lodeiro pass into the box ended in the back of the Galaxy for the own goal and the Sounders third goal of the game.
A nifty give and go exchange between Lodeiro and Shipp in the 59th minute resulted in Seattle’s fourth goal when Shipp found a wide open Cristian Roldan who blasted the ball into the back of the Galaxy goal for the home sides the fourth goal. Diaz made it five zero when he darted down right midfield and slotted a left footed shot past LA Goalkeeper David Bingham to close out the scoring and send the Rave Green faithful into sheer bedlam in the 67th minute. It was Diaz’s second goal of the season since joining the Sounders.
Seattle is now 6-4-2 at home and has earned 20 of its 35 points at CenturyLink Field. The club has five regular-season home matches remaining in 2018, and of the club’s 10 remaining games, eight are against Western Conference opponents.
GAME NOTES
- Saturday’s results extends Seattle’s unbeaten streak to nine games (7-0-2), dating back to July 4 at Colorado. The run is the longest spell without a loss this season, and matches the club’s second-longest unbeaten streak in club history (6-0-3 from May 28-July 16, 2011). The longest unbeaten streak in club history is 13 games (6-0-7) from June 21-September 23 of last season.
- Seattle’s 5-0 win matches the club record for margin of victory, previously set on July 13, 2016 against FC Dallas.
- Sounders FC is now 7-9-9 all-time against the Galaxy in MLS regular season play, with Seattle holding a 4-4-5 home record.
- Chad Marshall scored his third goal of the season, one short of his career high, when he headed in a Nico Lodeiro cross in the third minute. After last weekend’s goal against FC Dallas, Marshall now has now scored in consecutive appearances for the third time in his career (June 27-August 1, 2009 and April 10-16, 2016). Marshall now has 25 career MLS regular-season goals, including nine with Seattle. It marked the earliest goal scored this season by Seattle.
- Nico Lodeiro recorded two assists for the second time this season and fifth time in his Sounders FC career. He leads the club this season with nine assists, in addition to being tied with Will Bruin for the team lead with six goals. The Uruguayan now has five goals and seven assists in his last 10 games, dating back to June 30. With 29 career regular-season assists (in 64 appearances), Lodeiro now ranks third in club history behind only Fredy Montero and Mauro Rosales, who both have 34.
One Reply to “Sounders score early and often in 5-0 win over undermanned LA Galaxy”