LA Galaxy 0, San Jose Earthquakes 3 | 2017 MLS Match Recap

Charles Boehm

The LA Galaxy's woeful 2017 got worse on Sunday, as their California Clasico rivals the San Jose Earthquakes handed them their eighth home defeat of the season thus far, cruising to a 3-0 win at StubHub Center.

Valeri "Vako" Qazaishvili opened the scoring with a firm finish just before halftime, and LA were forced to play most of the second half with 10 men after defender Nathan Smith was shown a straight red card for a tackle on Andres Imperiale.

That was too much for the Galaxy to overcome, with Marco Ureña and Chris Wondolowski adding late exclamation points to salt away the result, which propels the Quakes into sixth place in the Western Conference.

Goals

45+3' – SJ – Valeri Qazaishvili Watch
80' – SJ – Marco Ureña Watch
90+2' – SJ – Chris Wondolowski Watch

Three Things

DOWN AND OUT IN LA
: The five-time MLS Cup champions keep plunging deeper and deeper into unfamiliar, and unpleasant, territory. The Galaxy have now gone 10 straight league matches without a victory,
a grisly 0-9-1 stretch
dating back to
a 3-1 win
over Colorado on June 21. Perhaps worst of all, they're 1-8-4 at home, where they were nearly unbeatable for years, with goals in particularly short supply of late:

The LA Galaxy have been shut out in 4 consecutive home games for the first time in their 22-year history#LAvSJ
— Rick Lawes (@ricklawes) August 28, 2017

IF IT WEREN'T FOR BAD LUCK... Not all of LA's woes are self-inflicted. They're a different team without star winger Romain Alessandrini, who had to miss Sunday's tilt because his girlfriend went into labor ahead of schedule earlier in the day. The injury bug keeps biting, with fullback Pele van Anholt stretchered off in the first half. And another Video Review decision went against the Galaxy, too, with Joao Pedro appearing to earn a penalty kick, only for the officiating team to determine that he was fouled outside the box.

LEITCH GETS A ROAD DUB: For the Quakes, this victory wasn't just a sweet demolition of their hated SoCal antagonists. It also broke a skid of six straight road losses (which were marked by a combined score of 21-3, no less) and gave new coach Chris Leitch his first win away from Avaya Stadium since he took over from Dominic Kinnear earlier in the year. More of that will surely help their postseason prospects.