Austin FC will look to continue their strong second season in Major League Soccer with a second win in Southern California in two weeks when they visit the LA Galaxy on Sunday.
Austin (7-3-3, 24 points) defeated the current Western Conference leaders Los Angeles Football Club on May 18 to briefly move into first place in the standings.
Austin then fell back to second place with a 2-2 home draw after Orlando City built a 2-0 lead only to give it back after suffering two red cards.
Sebastian Driussi scored his team-leading eighth goal from the penalty spot before Moussa Djitte leveled the match deep into second-half stoppage time.
And while the draw result might have been disappointing in some aspects, the response to adversity is enough reason for Austin FC to remain confident in their approach, forward Danny Hoesen said.
“I would say right now we’re going to keep doing the same thing,” he said. “We’re going to stay humble right now. You have nothing in your hands. You have no playoffs yet. We just need to put our heads down and start working again.”
The Galaxy (6-5-2, 20 points) are winless in their past three MLS matches, and yet coach Greg Vanney’s squad just might be coming off the biggest win of the season.
That’s because his side defeated rivals LAFC 3-1 on Wednesday night in the U.S. Open Cup fifth round to advance to the quarterfinals.
Kevin Cabral, Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez and Dejan Joveljic all scored after halftime for the Galaxy.
“I think Kevin had a great night and Sam (Grandsir) had maybe his best performance ever with the Galaxy just in sheer playing every single play the way he did,” Vanney said. “That takes us to a different speed as a team, which is I think important in our league. We were very dangerous on the counterattack, which I haven’t seen for a little while.”
–Field Level Media
