LAFC and Galaxy each won something notable in their El Tráfico draw

It was the kind of showdown MLS has long dreamed of to sell the league.

Marco Reus, a three-time Bundesliga player of the year, standing over the ball 25 yards from where Hugo Lloris, the most-capped goalkeeper in World Cup history, waited for his free kick. With less than three minutes left in regulation, the league’s most intense rivalry was hanging in the balance.

For Reus, however, the moment felt far from unique.

“I had these kind of situations a thousand times in my career. So I know what I have to do,” said Reus, who then did it, chipping a shot inches over LAFC’s five-man defensive wall and inches wide of a diving Lloris to give the Galaxy a 2-2 draw in Sunday’s El Tráfico.

For all the drama, the result was one neither team wanted, but one that both accepted.

“The feeling in the locker room is just pure disappointment. And we’ll learn from this moment and get better,” LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo said.

But, he added, “it’s also really important not to lose games, not just always to look to win, win, win. Yes, we all want to win. We do everything we can to win. It’s also important to understand we’re away and we got a point tonight.”

The result extended LAFC’s unbeaten streak to seven games. However the Reus goal, with less than three minutes left in regulation time, kept the team from winning back-to-back games for the first time since March 1.

“The result is fair,” Cherundolo said.

“In a couple of key moments we weren’t good enough to win. We didn’t have our best day. But we didn’t have a poor day.”

For the Galaxy (0-10-4), the tie extended their winless streak to 14 games, the longest ever by a reigning MLS Cup champion. However it also ended their five-game losing streak, the team’s longest in five seasons.

“It probably is somewhat of a fair result,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney agreed.

Nobody won, nobody lost, everybody had a good time.

Well, not exactly. Because both sides missed opportunities to take a big step forward and wound up running in place instead.

For LAFC (6-4-4), the draw continued a trend that has seen the team play well enough not to lose but rarely well enough to win. Reus’ goal prevented it from ending that mediocrity and building some momentum heading into next week’s Club World Cup qualifier with Mexico’s Club América.

“I definitely wanted to win so bad. The competitive juices were flowing,” said midfielder Mark Delgado, whose last game at Dignity Health Sports Park was the MLS Cup final, when he helped the Galaxy to their sixth league title and their last victory before being traded up the 110 Freeway to LAFC.

For the Galaxy, the winless streak remains an albatross hanging around their necks. Injuries have plagued the team, but the Galaxy were healthier Sunday than they’ve been all season. They were also playing in Carson, where they haven’t lost to LAFC in more than two years. And when Reus scored his first goal in the sixth minute, they led for just the third time all season.

“I told the guys in the dressing room that it doesn’t feel like a draw,” said Reus, whose first two-goal game in MLS won him the league’s player of the week honors. “We should win this game, especially 1-0 ahead after six minutes.”

On Friday the team signed Vanney to a multiyear contract extension that makes him the best-paid manager in MLS. If the announcement, two days before the rivalry game, was meant to take some pressure off the coach, another week without a win left Vanney once again searching for silver linings on the black cloud hovering above his team.

This time he pointed to the determination the Galaxy showed after losing both the lead and an apparent tying goal to an offside call.

“Tonight is a positive night that hopefully we need to think about using as a springboard,” he said. “This is as good of a team as we’ve played against and we played them very even up.”

Cherundolo, like Vanney, thought his team looked good in a tie — especially at the end of a week in which it played three times in two countries in seven days.

So maybe it’s more appropriate to call Sunday’s game a tie in which both teams won something.

For LAFC, Denis Bouanga’s first-half wonderstrike from well outside the box gave him seven goals in his team’s seven-game unbeaten streak. He led MLS in scoring the last two seasons but was goalless through his team’s first seven games this season, four of which LAFC lost.

For the Galaxy, the two scores from Reus gave him four goal contributions in two games — and he lost another assist on the offside call that negated Gabriel Pec’s second-half goal. More importantly, he played 90 minutes in consecutive games for the first time since coming to MLS last summer.

Even MLS won with the Reus-Lloris showdown.

“We can’t lose sight of the journey that we’re on for the entire season,” Cherundolo said. “The steps we’ve made as a group have been very positive. I’m seeing this as one of 34 league games, plus the Champions League games. We’re on a good path.”

You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.