LA Galaxy lose 2-2 to San Jose, no that's not a typo

The LA Galaxy drew 2-2 to the San Jose Earthquakes Friday night, a draw that felt more like a loss as LA completely dominated every phase of the game but ultimately couldn't find the go ahead goal. San Jose relied on an overly defensive shape to frustrate the Galaxy, and got two quick goals on the counter in the first half.

With the Quakes putting so many players behind the ball, LA had to go to the air which was not that much more effective. Omar Gonzalez found the match's second equaliser off a corner kick restart, but for the most part LA just wasn't winning the battle inside the penalty area. Not that they didn't keep trying with 40 crosses from open play.

There was no interval during the match where San Jose kept more possession than LA. The Galaxy ended up taking 24 attempts on goal, so even with 70% possession they created a high number of chances relative to how much they had the ball.

Omar Gonzalez finally got a set piece goal after quite a drought, but it wasn't one of his better nights defending. With Gonzalez vulnerable to being caught out of position on counters, San Jose was able to exploit his side of the field for the first goal and the second was just a rocket that caught everyone off guard.

Gyasi Zardes continued to show his increased understanding of the game, while at the same time his game continues to benefit from Robbie Keane getting him into good positions. It seemed in the first half that San Jose were going to get a leg out on every Galaxy shot attempt blocking six shots, but LA continued holding possession, continued taking second chance shots.

The Galaxy got key passes from just about everyone, and from all sides of the pitch. Juninho and Sarvas were the only attackers not to get involved in directly creating chances and didn't have their best game.

In the end it's a frustrating affair. The old cliche that you throw out the record books when two rivals get together proved true, and as things start to wind down that brief glimpse of the Supporter's Shield race got a little dimmer. However, from the perspective of proving playoff mettle things were just fine.