Major League Soccer put two games on the Fourth of July schedule, and both ended in draws. In Salt Lake, it took six goals to split the points, while in LA the Galaxy vs Sounders game was the 20th this season to end scoreless.
Salt Lake 3 – New England 3
Things started poorly for the home side on Monday night, with Salt Lake going a man down 3 minutes in when Nat Borchers was sent off for denying a goal scoring opportunity. Rajko Lekic converted the ensuing 4th minute penalty that put New England up on the road and it was 2-0 Revs when Chris Tiereny scored in the 16th. RSL came back with a Will Johnson goal in the 24th and an Alvaro Saborio penalty in the 56th minute. The teams traded goals again, with New England going up in the 63rd minute when Shalrie Joseph scored but seeing their own red card four minutes later when Ryan Cochrane was sent off. Salt Lake equalized through Fabian Espindola in the 83rd.
“I think in some ways we have to feel a little bit hard-done that we didn’t get all three, because we certainly had the majority of the chances,” RSL coach Jason Kreis said.
LA 0 – Seattle 0
The buildup was better than the payout in front of 27,000 fans at the Home Depot Center. LA got a big game out of reserve goalkeeper Brian Perk who blocked Fredy Montero’s penalty. Seattle ended up the team wondering what might have been, failing to convert a penalty in the 18th minute in a game where they put 5 of 12 shots on frame to LA’s 2 from 9. LA ended up the team wondering what was going on, having to sub out central defenders AJ DeLaGarza and Omar Gonzalez with injuries that ended their night but aren’t expected to cost them additional games.
“0-0 is not the best result for your team,” Perk said. “I mean, I think three points is what we deserved, but we didn’t give up a goal and that’s a credit to our back line. We don’t concede many goals. Whether it’s me, Saunders, or Ricketts, it seems like we’re always giving zero or one goal. When Omar went down I was thinking, maybe we should take the draw, 0-0 is not the worst result with both our center backs down.”
