After earning a red card early in the game, North Texas SC struggled to find a way to break through in a blowout loss at home to LAFC2.
Los Toritos changed things up a bit this week, opting for a 3-5-2 formation, with Nico Montoya in goal for his seventh start of the season. The backline consisted of Gavin Gall, Mohamed Cisset, and Álvaro Augusto.
In the midfield, Sam Sarver and Joshua Torquato both made their return to the starting lineup at right and left wing back, respectively. A position that may be somewhat unfamiliar to the current Golden Boot leader for MLS Next Pro, however, one that he’ll have to learn if he wants to make that jump in Eric Quill’s offense.
With the recent departure of Tarik Scott to Monterey Bay FC, Faisu Sangare and Anthony Ramirez started up top as the team’s strikers for tonight’s game.
LAFC2 sported a 4-3-3 formation with Thomas Hasal getting his fifth start of the season. For the second time this season, Skylar Kaplan started at left back, alongside Erick Diaz, Kenny Nielsen, and Sebastian Nava in the backline.
In the midfield, Odin Holm made his fourth start with LAFC2 regulars Adam Saldaña and Decarlo Guerra, who earned their eighth and fourteenth starts, respectively. Most notably absent from the starting XI was Jude Terry, who has made 18 starts for the away side so far this season.
Early on, it was all LAFC2. In the 24th minute, Cisset took down Adrian Wibowo in the box and earned NTSC’s second yellow of the game. Guerra stepped up to take the PK and converted it to give LA an early 1-0 lead.
Cisset was (unfortunately) given an early birthday present from the referee when he picked up his second yellow of the game in the 36th minute. North Texas would have to finish the rest of the game down a man.
Things didn’t stop there, however. In the 40th minute, Nava shot a screamer from about 30 yards out that bounced its way past Montoya, into the bottom left corner, to give LAFC2 a 2-0 lead.
Things were just not going NTSC’s way tonight.
“The red card completely changed the game for us,” head coach John Gall said after the game. “At halftime, we made a couple of adjustments and changed our shape a little bit in terms of playing a man down. I thought for 15 minutes after halftime, the boys tried to do the things we asked them to do. We were compact and we were smart. I thought that we built well.”
In the 60th minute, Kaplan took a long-range shot, which was then stopped by Augusto in front of the goal. However, it bounced right back to Gavin Zambrano, who returned the shot back towards the goal and into the back of the net. 3-0 LAFC2.
LAFC2 continued their onslaught of North Texas SC and extended their lead to 4-0 in the 75th minute. After Matt Evans played Zambrano through, he was one-on-one with Nolan Norris and was able to curl a shot into the top right corner for his second of the night and (thankfully) the final goal of the game.
Head coach John Gall added, “LAFC2, in all honesty, is a team with good footballers. They move the ball very well and are comfortable in possession. Like I said, for me, it was something where we felt that we could attack them on the outside, and it just didn’t turn out that way. So it’s certainly something we’ll look at, and certainly something that we will readdress.”
In a game where you lose 4-0, it’s hard to award anyone as the “Man of the Match”. However, in keeping up with tradition, our MOTM tonight was Aaron Essel. With 89% of his passes completed and a number of contributions on defense, the Ghanaian midfielder had another solid performance tonight.
Up next, North Texas SC travels to William Rolland Stadium to take on Ventura County FC on Sunday, August 31st at 9:00 pm CT. VCFC is currently 10-7-5 on the season, with 2 shoot-out wins.
