San Jose Earthquakes have defeated LAFC 4-1 in Sunday’s marquee Western Conference clash in Major League Soccer.
Scorers: Bouda 53′, 80′, Werner 56′, Porteous 59′ (OG) ; Roberts 74′ (OG)
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San Jose started the match on the front-foot as Ousseni Bouda forced a point-blank, reaction save from Hugo Lloris inside two minutes.
After a slow start, LAFC improved as the half went on. However, both sides went into the break scoreless.
Early in the second-half, Son Heung-min struck a well-timed volley from the edge of the box, but the South Korean’s effort was stopped by San Jose goalkeeper Daniel.
Five minutes later, the Quakes opened the scoring as Timo Werner found Bouda unmarked at the back-post.
The goal ended Lloris’ run of 593 consecutive minutes without conceding, the fourth-longest streak in league history.
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Moments later, Werner skipped past the challenge of Nkosi Tafari and fired past Lloris to score his first MLS goal.
The Quakes added a third goal in six minutes through an own-goal from Ryan Porteous.
The hosts responded through another own-goal, before Bouda completed his brace to put the match beyond LAFC’s reach.
At full-time, San Jose Earthquakes went joint-top of the Western Conference on 21 points, extending their lead over third-place LAFC.
While the Quakes had lost 11 of their previous 13 away matches vs LAFC, they have now won all four of their games on the road this season.
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LAFC, on the other hand, never quite seemed to get themselves going – perhaps still recovering from Tuesday’s Concacaf Champions Cup battle against Cruz Azul.
