Galaxy suffered Chicharito's absence due to COVID and was surprised by Earthquakes

The Los Angeles Galaxy suffered a painful 3-2 home loss to the San Jose Earthquakes, who were in last place in the MLS Western Conference before the match, despite a furious second half comeback after a terrible first half defense Wednesday night at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.

Galaxy coach Greg Vanney had to do without his star player, Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, who was unable to make the call-up due to a last-minute entry into the COVID-19 protocol, which partly spoiled the home team's plan.

Serious defensive errors by the Galaxy

In the 13th minute, Mexico national team defender Julian Araujo made a serious mistake when he pushed Benjamin Kikanovic in the box, so the play was penalized with a penalty kick that was well capitalized by Cristian Espinoza, who crossed his shot leaving Jonathan Bond with no chance.

In the next play, Sega Coulibaly made a mistake when he tried to come out with the ball under control and gave the ball to his rivals, who ended up scoring the second goal in the 14th minute with a good definition by Jeremy Ebobisse.

The best play of the match for the visitors came in the 40th minute, when Benjamin Kikanovic executed a beautiful pass that left Marcos Lopez face to face with Jonathan Bond, the Peruvian left back eluded the goalkeeper in a magnificent way and scored the 0-3 with which they went to halftime.

Los Angeles' furious second-half comeback

Los Angeles showed a completely different face in the second half with the entry of several players, among which Douglas Costa and Kevin Cabral stood out, the latter assisting the first goal for the home team in the 48th minute after an excellent deflection by Dejan Joveljic.

Galaxy tried to close the gap with several clear chances that both Cabral and Mexican Efrain Alvarez missed, and were only able to score the second goal a minute before the final whistle when Joveljic took a fabulous shot with his left foot from outside the box that was embedded in the upper left corner of the goal defended by T.J. Marcinkowski.

After this result, the Los Angeles Galaxy dropped to seventh place in the Western Conference with 27 points, while the San Jose Earthquakes moved up to 12th place in the same classification with 22 points.

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