{"id":23002,"date":"2019-05-30T16:07:59","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T20:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=23002"},"modified":"2019-05-30T16:08:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T20:08:31","slug":"zlatan-returns-powers-galaxy-to-first-win-in-kc-since-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2019\/05\/30\/zlatan-returns-powers-galaxy-to-first-win-in-kc-since-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Zlatan Returns, Powers Galaxy to First Win in KC Since 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>KANSAS CITY, Kan.<\/strong> &#8211; When you give Zlatan Ibrahimovic enough space to thread a needle through a string \u2014 or a ball between a hapless goalkeeper&#8217;s legs \u2014 you&#8217;re going to be hard pressed to walk off the field 90 minutes later with a clean sheet. And that&#8217;s exactly what Sporting KC experienced on Wednesday night, as Ibrahimovic scored one and assisted one as LA Galaxy defeated Sporting KC 2-0 at Children&#8217;s Mercy Park.<\/p>\n<h1>Zlatan Powers Galaxy to Win Over Sporting KC<\/h1>\n<p>Yet it was Sporting KC who threatened early, creating a multitude of chances including a shot from Kelyn Rowe being blocked on the goal line from Daniel Steres. It took until the 56th minute for LA Galaxy to break the deadlock, as <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2019\/05\/07\/busy-mls-deadline-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Favio Alvarez<\/a> headed past Tim Melia after a cushioned header from Ibrahimovic put the ball on a platter for Alvarez.<\/p>\n<p>Ibrahimovic then doubled the lead with just four minutes remaining in regulation, as the Swede was offered far too much space to chest down the ball and fire between Melia&#8217;s legs in front of The Cauldron.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">ZLatan still scoring goals in the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@MLS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ibra_official?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Ibra_official<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MLS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#MLS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LAGalaxy?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#LAGalaxy<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UsWfXcLo1p\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/UsWfXcLo1p<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Sport on Sporting Life (@SLSport_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SLSport_\/status\/1134035937430777856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 30, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cCredit to him, he was involved in both goals, obviously the second one he scored,&#8221; Peter Vermes said. &#8220;In both goals, we could have done so much better on both of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong> Wasted Chances <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 2-0 scoreline doesn&#8217;t wholly reflect the run of play, as Sporting KC had plenty of chances throughout the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a 2-0 game. I think we missed too many really, really good chances in the game,&#8221; Vermes said. &#8220;To me, the fact that we didn\u2019t finish our chances put us at 2-0. We should have actually been winning at some point 2-0 before they got to that point, and I think it would have changed the game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Along with Rowe&#8217;s blocked shot, Yohan Croizet had several heavy touches to squander opportunities, while Felipe Gutierrez placed a casual header from a corner off the top of the bar and out of play.<\/p>\n<p><strong> The Injured Return <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Peter Vermes was finally able to produce a full bench on Wednesday night, but that also meant several players making their first appearances back from injury.<\/p>\n<p>Andreu Fontas, Graham Zusi, Matt Besler, Daniel Salloi and Jimmy Medranda (who played just a handful of minutes on Sunday against Seattle) put in extended minutes against LA Galaxy, cutting Sporting&#8217;s injury list down to just six.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt feels good to be healthy again and I can play&#8230; We have to manage it, other teams have to do it too,&#8221; Salloi said.<\/p>\n<p><strong> Roadtrip! <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Vermes&#8217; men must now prepare for a four-game road trip, which could potentially grow to five dependent on Sporting&#8217;s draw in the U.S. Open Cup. Starting with Saturday&#8217;s game against the Houston Dynamo, Sporting will then travel far up north to take on Toronto, before slowly working its way back south against Columbus and then San Jose.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s going to be a tough month because we don\u2019t play at home, but I think everybody is kind of ready in their head and we\u2019ll try to get the best in June,\u201d Salloi said.<\/p>\n<p>Sporting&#8217;s first game back at Children&#8217;s Mercy Park will come against Los Angeles FC on July 3, meaning the team doesn&#8217;t play a single MLS game at home in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KANSAS CITY, Kan. &#8211; When you give Zlatan Ibrahimovic enough space to thread a needle through a string \u2014 or a ball between a hapless goalkeeper&#8217;s legs \u2014 you&#8217;re going to be hard pressed to walk off the field 90 minutes later with a clean sheet. And that&#8217;s exactly what Sporting KC experienced on Wednesday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3072,"featured_media":22728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17,19],"tags":[3026,36,233,1038],"class_list":["post-23002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-galaxy","category-skc","tag-favio-alvarez","tag-la-galaxy","tag-sporting-kc","tag-zlatan-ibrahimovic"],"modified_by":"Daniel Sperry, Staff Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3072"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}