LA Galaxy Vs LAFC: Best of the best?
The LA Galaxy host Los Angeles FC in the first El Trafico of the season. Is this the match that features the two best teams in all of MLS? It might just be.
Derbies are special. They have a special kind of atmosphere, a special kind of fire and ferocity, a special kind of significance. That is true irrespective of the quality of the teams participating in them. The fans want to win these matches no matter how their team may be performing, and the players are quite aware of what is on the line.
On Friday night, the newest local derby — and already one of the most hotly anticipated — will provide its fourth, riveting instalment. After dramatic draws and 50-yard MLS debut volleys, last season’s El Traficos were unquestionably the games of the season. And now, halfway through 2019, the next episode looms.
But this year’s contest between the two Los Angeles-based teams, the Los Angeles Galaxy and Los Angeles FC, will take on a new meaning, even for a derby as intense and heated as this.
This year, in their second season in MLS, LAFC are a different proposition to their pre-adolescent, talented but raw inaugural version. They still have the unpredictability, the flair, the raw scoring power of last year’s team, but they have partnered it with a control, an authority, a command that allows them to saunter through matches before slicing you to death.
LAFC are the best team in MLS. At their present rate, they might be the best team in MLS history. But the LA Galaxy, while cowering in the Black and Gold shadow of their neighbours, are not far behind.
With Zlatan Ibrahimovic irrepressibly leading the way, Guillermo Barros Schelotto has assembled a cross-happy team that is capable of challenging LAFC at the sharp end of the West. They may not play with the same precision and panache as their great rivals, but the LA Galaxy are effective, and that certainly goes for something.
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34 points from 20 games is nothing to be scoffed at. 27 goals scored is a little low, and is an indication of their over-reliance on Zlatan given that he has scored nearly half of them, but they have the fourth-best defensive record in MLS, behind D.C. United, New York City FC, who have played two games fewer, and, you guessed it, LAFC.
If LAFC are the unchallenged supreme team in the league, the Galaxy are unquestionably in the conversation for the next best. Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia and the other ragtag contenders in the East may also make their case, but LA are as good as any of them, and they have the best player out of all.
Only Carlos Vela holds a candle to Zlatan. The Swede’s 13 goals are joint-second in MLS, but his overall impact on the LA Galaxy is greater than any individual player not playing down the road from him. Zlatan is the beating heart, the roaring mouth, of the Galaxy, for better or worse. Vela, meanwhile, is sensational, other-worldly, freakish in his brilliance.
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This is a true battle of the titans, one for the ages. It is a derby. And that makes it special. But is also a contest between the best of the best. Do not miss this one, folks.