Cristian Espinoza has been one of the best players in Major League Soccer, winning the award for the league’s Player of the Month for April.
May is off to a great start, too, after Espinoza scored two goals to lead the San Jose Earthquakes to a 2–1 win over Los Angeles FC Saturday at Levi’s Stadium, home of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers.
The win for San Jose (5–3–3, 18 points) gave LAFC (5–1–3, 18 points) its first loss of the season. The key play was the Earthquakes’ Jeremy Ebobisse drawing a foul in the box against LAFC’s Denil Maldonado in the 81st minute, and Espinoza stepped up to take the penalty and converting it.
Espinoza opened the scoring in the eighth minute.
Pinpoint passing from Jackson Yueill, Cade Cowell, Ebobisse and Jamiro Monteiro set up Espinoza for his seventh goal of the season. Monteiro slipped a pass between two LAFC defenders for Espinoza for the finish.
In the 30th minute, LAFC’s Denis Bouanga, himself an early-season MVP candidate, was waiting near the goal to kick in a saved shot from Mateusz Bogusz. Bouanga has 14 goals across all competitions this season.
LAFC had been the only team left in MLS without a defeat so far this season. The defending MLS Cup champion has played just nine games because of a heavy Concacaf Champions League schedule, which contributed to MLS postponing LAFC’s scheduled regular season match against the Houston Dynamo last weekend.
After steamrolling three teams in aggregate-goal series, LAFC has advanced to the Concacaf Champions League final at the end of May. But doing so forced them to alter their MLS regular season schedule.
Goalkeeper J.T. Marcinkowski had six saves as LAFC had seven shots on goal against San Jose. The Earthquakes managed only three shots on goal but made two for the win.
Rapids Best Galaxy, Unbeaten in 7 Games
Kevin Cabral scored against his former team while Lalas Abubakar and Jonathan Lewis added goals, and the visiting Colorado Rapids extended their unbeaten run to seven games with a 3–1 victory over the Los Angeles Galaxy on Saturday, May 6.Rapids goalkeeper William Yarbrough made six saves but allowed a late goal that prevented him from his fifth shutout of the season.
The Rapids (2–3–6, 12 points) won for the first time since April 8 and are now 2–0–5 going back to a 1–1 tie against Austin FC on March 25.
Preston Judd scored in the 89th minute for the Galaxy to prevent the shutout. Los Angeles goalkeeper Jonathan Klinsmann had two saves while making his seventh consecutive start as No. 1 goalkeeper Jonathan Bond recovers from a shoulder injury.
The Rapids took a 1–0 lead in the 14th minute when Abubakar scored on a header off a corner kick from Connor Ronan. Klinsmann was unable to deflect Ronan’s cross through the penalty area and Abubakar delivered his first goal of the season.
Cabral celebrated a goal against his former team in the 65th minute, his second of the season. Colorado delivered against the run of play after the Galaxy had been forcing the action. The Rapids’ Diego Rubio and Cabral got past the Galaxy back line with Rubio feeding Cabral for the goal on the break.
Cabral played the past two seasons with the Galaxy, with the speedy forward never fulfilling his promise, scoring six goals in 61 games (47 starts).
Lewis made it 3–0 for the Rapids when he banged a shot off the knee of a sliding Klinsmann and into the Los Angeles goal in the 81st minute for his first tally of the season.
The Galaxy welcomed back midfielder Riqui Puig after he sat out last weekend’s 2–0 defeat at Orlando City because of yellow-card accumulation. Los Angeles owned possession for 63.5 percent of the game.
