Orlando City (7-14-1, 22 points) lost to the LA Galaxy (10-7-5, 35 points) Sunday night 4-3 at the Stub Hub Center in Carson California. IT was Orlando’s 8th loss in a row for the Lions. Orlando players Cristian Higuita and Dom Dwyer scored for City. Orlando also received the gift of an own goal by LA’s Michael Ciani in the 44th minute.
But the match was a night for Zlatan Ibrahimović to put on a display. Zlatan pulled a hat trick, scoring goals in the 47th, 67th, and 71st minutes.
“It definitely hurts but when you look at the quality of play you can take a lot from the first-half performance,” Lions head coach James O’Connor said. “We expect to be better. You can’t come away, score three goals and not get anything out of the game. The level of the performance at times, the quality of the football at times is really, really good. But again, it becomes irrelevant when you don’t win the game.”
Orlando took the lead in the 19th minute as Kljestan held the ball in front of the Galaxy defense and sent Higuita into the box to put Orlando up 1-0. The goal was Higuita’s fourth goal of the season and his sixth over his MLS career.
A responded with a goal from Giovani dos Santos in the 39th minute.
The Lions retook the lead in the 44th minute on an own-goal from Galaxy defender Michael Ciani. It was City’s first own-goal in favor since May 2016.
Dom Dwyer scored his ninth goal of the season on a clever play from Mohamed El-Munir in the 54th minute to make it 3-2 but the Galaxy took all three points riding the second-half hat-trick from Zlatan Ibrahimović.
“We’re conceding, obviously, too many goals,” O’Connor said. “Individual errors.”
“We’ll sit down, we’ll obviously go through with the players individually,” O’Connor said. “Some really good performances from the attacking players. I thought we had some lovely passages of play.
“To score three goals away from home, especially at Galaxy and not get anything … it just … it can’t happen, really.”
The Lions return to Orlando City Stadium at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 4, to host the New England Revolution.
