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Late Laurent Ciman goal leads LAFC past Seattle in home opener

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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – Cristian Roldan is going to have a long flight back to Seattle. The midfielder conceded a free kick in extra time during Seattle’s rematch against Los Angeles FC. This time, the match took place at Banc of America Stadium.

The match was LAFC’s stadium opener in front of 22,000 fans, a sellout.

Late Laurent Ciman goal leads Los Angeles FC past Seattle Sounders in home opener

With the free kick at their disposal, Laurent Ciman lined up to take the shot. Sending the ball over a four-man wall, it smacked off the arms of Sounders goalkeeper Stefan Frei.

However, the ball ended up in the back of the net as Frei couldn’t hang on.

The last time the two sides met, on March 4 at CenturyLink Field, the new expansion club claimed a 1-0 victory on a Diego Rossi goal.

This time, the same scene wasn’t set. Rossi’s goal occurred in the 11th minute of the March match. However, this time, Seattle kept a strong defense for 90 minutes.

It was the Roldan-conceded free kick that doomed Seattle.

The Sounders remain at the bottom of the MLS’ Western Conference with four points. Meanwhile, Los Angeles FC sits high in second place with 15 points, right behind Sporting Kansas City.

Three Takeaways

  1. A fairly even match should have ended scoreless: If Roldan wouldn’t have conceded that free kick, the match would have ended in a scoreless draw. Despite earning a late-goal win, Seattle outplayed the home team for the first half. The second half was about even for both sides.
  2. Both goalkeepers flopped: More than just a few times, Tyler Miller of LAFC and Stefan Frei of the Sounders were caught off-guard in their nets. Frei’s biggest blooper was not hanging onto the ball from Ciman. Meanwhile, Miller almost gave up a few key attempts on corner kicks.
  3. Kim Kee-Hee and Gustav Svensson were solid: Keeping Carlos Vela scoreless for 90 minutes isn’t the easiest task, but center backs Kim Kee-Hee and Gustav Svensson were both solid defensively. Kelvin Leerdam and Nouhou weren’t bad either, but the two center backs had to deal with Vela, Benny Feilhaber and Diego Rossi. The two defenders limited the three to only four shots.

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