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Records aren’t supposed to matter in Derby matches. When you’re facing your most bitter rival, the past is just that — the past.
“That all becomes irrelevant,” LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo said. “Those games are kind of isolated on their own.”
So it meant nothing that the defending MLS Cup champion entered Sunday’s El Tráfico winless in 13 matches while LAFC was unbeaten in six straight.
Perhaps it was fitting, then, that LAFC and the Galaxy played to a 2-2 draw in front of a crowd of 23,083 at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Mark Delgado will be doing his part to help LAFC beat the Galaxy in the latest installment of the El Tráfico rivalry even if it’ll feel strange playing against his former team.
“It probably is somewhat of a fair result,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney conceded. “This is a good team that we played against. And we played them very even up. We had a chance.”
And a chance is more than the Galaxy (0-10-4) have had in a lot of games this season.
The draw kept LAFC (6-4-4) unbeaten since April 5. For the Galaxy, the tie ended a five-game losing streak — their longest since 2020. But it also extended their winless one to 14 matches, the worst start in franchise history and the worst ever for a reigning MLS champion.
LAFC’s goals came from Denis Bouanga and Nathan Ordaz, one in each half, while Marco Reus had both scores for the Galaxy. Afterward, both Reus and midfielder Edwin Cerrillo disagreed with Vanney’s take about the justice of a draw.
“I told the guys in the dressing room that it doesn’t feel like like a draw. We should win this game,” Reus said.
“We’re the Galaxy,” Cerrillo added in Spanish. “We have pressure to win.”
With playmaker Riqui Puig, who hasn’t played since undergoing surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament last December, looking on, the Galaxy attacked from the start and were rewarded in the sixth minute when Reus knocked in the rebound of a Gabriel Pec shot that LAFC keeper Hugo Lloris had stopped. The goal was the second of the season for Reus and it marked just the third time in 14 MLS games that the Galaxy had scored first.
But the lead didn’t last long, with Bouanga tying the score by lining a right-footed shot from about 30 yards into the side netting at the far post in the 13th minute. The goal was Bouanga’s seventh in seven games and was one he celebrated with a trademark front flip.
Former Galaxy midfielder Mark Delgado, who got his team-leading fourth assist on the play, chose not to celebrate the goal against his old team.
LAFC went in front five minutes into the second half when a low through ball from Ryan Hollingshead split Galaxy center backs Maya Yoshida and Emiro Garces and found Ordaz cutting into the penalty area. After catching up to the ball, Ordaz used his first touch to lift a left-footed shot by Galaxy keeper John McCarthy for his third goal of the season and the second in three starts.
The Galaxy appeared to even the game on a brilliant counterattack goal from Pec in the 78th minute, but after a long video review referee Drew Fischer ruled Pec was offside.
Amid a franchise-record long winless start to the season and calls for coach Greg Vanney to be fired, the Galaxy signed him to a contract extension.
The Galaxy refused to quit and were rewarded when Reus chipped in a free kick from just outside the box in the 87th minute, giving the Galaxy their first point in a month — a point McCarthy saved with a brilliant goal-line stop of Hollingshead’s back-heel try deep in stoppage time.
And Vanney, whose team is desperate for good news, was willing to call that progress.
“The group had to manage certain emotions through the course of the game, which I think is important,” he said. “Being ahead, then being even, being behind. Getting an offside. All those things kind of take you through emotional swings in the course of the game.
“The emotions have been tough on us this year, but to able to manage our emotions, to get the equalizing goal says a lot for the group’s commitment and togetherness. Tonight is a positive night that we need to think about using as a springboard.”
It doesn’t do much for the Galaxy in the standings, though.
“I honestly don’t look at the standings,” Vanney said. “I know where we are.”
