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| Galaxy forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic tries to head the ball during a corner kick in the first half |
The Galaxy couldn’t afford a loss and the Los Angeles Football Club couldn’t accept another late-game meltdown. So neither team was especially disappointed with a 1-1 draw in the third match of their crosstown rivalry Friday, played before a noisy, sold-out StubHub Center crowd of 27,068.
But neither team was happy either.
“This game we could have won easy. It was an easy game,” said Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who scored the Galaxy’s only goal in the 15th minute. “We are much better than them.”
For the Galaxy the tie extended their winless streak to a season-high five games and left them unbeaten at home since May. But it also saw them drop two points at StubHub Center for a third straight game, leaving them tied for fourth in a Western Conference playoff race in which the top six advance.
For LAFC, the draw snapped a two-game winning streak, but the point it earned lifted the team over Sporting Kansas City and into second in the standings.
“To come away with a point, fair enough,” LAFC coach Bob Bradley said. “Do I think it’s our best football? No.”
In the first two editions of the Southern California derby, LAFC built early leads only to see the Galaxy rally in the waning minutes to earn a win and a tie.
This time it was Ibrahimovic staking the Galaxy to an early lead, although he needed helped from a video replay to do so.
The sequence started with Ola Kamara lobbing a soft pass across the front of the goal for Ibrahimovic, who chested the ball down to his right foot and took a shot from the edge of the six-yard box, beating LAFC keeper Tyler Miller.
Although Danilo Silva appeared to clear the ball off the line, Ibrahimovic threw his hands up in celebration and after consulting a replay referee Jair Marrufo agreed, ruling the ball had crossed the line to give Ibrahimovic the 499th goal of his career.
Twelve minutes later Silva exited with hamstring tightness but Ibrahimovic remained dangerous in a first half the Galaxy dominated, outshooting LAFC 9-6 and putting twice as many on goal.