LAFC defeats Real Salt Lake to Advance to the 5th round of the Open Cup

Even though the Black and Gold were slightly undermanned, they came out of Utah with a 3-0 victory. With Walker Zimmerman, Tyler Miller and Mark Anthony Kaye all on international duty for the Gold Cup, the replacements stepped up and made plays.

A common theme this season, LAFC got the scoring started early with Carlos Vela scoring in the eighth minute. Guess which foot he scored with? The golden left foot of Vela has been the driving force behind the success of the Black and Gold and Tuesday night was no different.

Lee Nguyen added a goal in the 64^th minute on a beautiful pass from Latif Blessing, who has been a revelation in the central of the pitch. Then, in the third minute of stoppage time, Adama Diomande scored off of a rebounded free kick to put the icing on the cake.

Depth

The story of this win has to be the depth of quality players LAFC has available to them. We already knew that guys like Tristan Blackmon and Lee Nguyen could play, but first looks at guys like Pablo Sisniega, Rodolfo Zelaya tell us there is even more depth than we thought.

In his first game, Sisniega had some incredible saves. None were bigger than the save in the 59th minute on a shot just outside the left side of the six-yard box, which Sisniega saved with his foot. Tyler Miller is the starter, but when LAFC needed the subs to step up, they did.

Even though Nguyen hasn’t been one of the regulars, he still stepped up and delivered a big goal to make it 2-0. Finally, a first look at Rodolfo Zelaya revealed at the very least, he can take some set pieces. He shot a rocket in 93rd minute through the wall which banged off the left post and resulted in an easy rebound goal for Adama Diomande.

Earlier this year, we were all a bit intimidated when LAFC dropped a game to the Whitecaps. Bob Bradley started several bench guys and it wasn’t pretty. The depth of the Black and Gold was put to the test again on Tuesday, they passed with flying colors.

Sidenote: Eduard Atuesta is playing out of his mind. Vela has the goals for LAFC, but make no mistake, Atuesta makes LAFC go.