Injuries to Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández and Sega Coulibaly hurt Galaxy in loss
For Galaxy coach Greg Vanney, the combination of a crowded schedule and the loss of several players to international duty promised to make July a test of his team’s depth.
That test got quite a bit harder Sunday night at Dignity Health Sports Park when the team scratched captain Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, the league’s leading scorer, minutes before kickoff, then lost center back Sega Coulibaly to a right abductor injury just before halftime.
However, the biggest loss came on the scoreboard, with Johnny Russell scoring on the rebound of his own shot to spark Sporting Kansas City to a 2-0 victory in a game the Galaxy dominated.
Russell’s first goal of the season came in the 81st minute after Galaxy goalkeeper Jonathan Bond batted away his first attempt, only to see the rebound go straight to the Kansas City captain, who headed it in from about eight yards. With the Galaxy pressing for an equalizer late in stoppage time, Khiry Shelton added an insurance goal on the final touch of the game.
The loss was the Galaxy’s second in as many games at home, and it moved Kansas City (8-3-2) into a tie with the undefeated Seattle Sounders atop the Western Conference standings, five points ahead of the third-place Galaxy (7-4-0).
But what made it even more frustrating for Vanney was that his team played its best game of the year and had nothing to show for it.
“For 78minutes, it was arguably the best game we’ve played all year,” he said. “Our ball circulation, our ball movements, our positional play, our relationships on the field, our chance creation was all outstanding. The part that missed was putting the ball in the back of the net. When you create so many chances, we have to score.
“At the end of the day, we want to win the game, right? We don’t want to keep talking about moral performance victories.”
But that was the Galaxy’s only victory on an otherwise lost night. How big a loss won’t be known until Hernández is re-examined. Vanney said he was held out for precautionary reasons after experiencing discomfort in his right calf, the same one he tore last summer, sidelining him for two months. His status for Wednesday night’s game at Austin FC is uncertain.
“Hopefully we caught it and we can move forward,” he said. “But we don’t know until tomorrow.”
Coulibaly, meanwhile, limped off in the 38th minute. His availability for Wednesday’s match is also uncertain, complicating things for a Galaxy team that entered the weekend without three starters in midfielders Jonathan dos Santos and Efraín Álvarez, who are away with the Mexican national team, and center back Derrick Williams, who was serving the second-to-last match of a six-game suspension.
Also missing to international duty were defenders Oniel Fisher (Jamaica) and Giancarlo González (Costa Rica), while midfielder Sebastian Lletget will be leaving after the next game to join the U.S. team.
With the two injuries Sunday, the Galaxy could be down seven players through the end of the CONCACAF Gold Cup next month.
Despite all that, it took a combination of bad luck and some solid play from Kansas City goalie Tim Melia to keep the Galaxy off the board on a night in which they had a 18-12 shots-on-goal advantage.
Winger Samuel Grandsir — who spent part of the last week in France with his partner, who last month gave birth to a boy — was especially snakebit with Melia stopping three of his shot attempts.
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