Giovani dos Santos, Robbie Keane, and Steven Gerrard combined for all three Galaxy goals as they held on to a 3-2 victory over FC Dallas with Los Angeles taking over the top spot in the Western Conference.
Los Angeles got off to a quick start, scoring twice inside the first 15 minutes of the match. The first goal came in the 11th, when Giovani dos Santos squared the ball to Robbie Keane who proceeded to play the ball out wide to Gyasi Zardes. Zardes then played the ball back into the middle where dos Santos placed the ball in behind Jesse Gonzalez after the Mexican international had made a great little run to get on the end of the ball.
The Captain Robbie Keane doubled the lead three minutes later, with dos Santos being the distributor this time around, Keane was fed with a back heel from the first goal scorer and curled the ball into the right hand side of the goal. L.A. would continue to dominate the play, moving off the ball excellently, creating spaces for the Galaxy forwards to get on the end of crisp passes from both the middle of the pitch as well as the wings.
Right before the half hour mark, Robbie Keane found space in behind Dallas' defense. The Irish National Team striker lost control of the ball on his final touch, ending in what could have been a devastating blow to the visitors' chances of coming back in this match.
Fortunately though, Dallas was able to cut the lead in half, 10 minutes before the interval, through Michael Barrios. He and Robbie Rogers battled in the penalty before Barrios won a header. Donovan Ricketts was caught out of position as the ball was looped over the top and rolled into the back of the net.
A minute into stoppage time at the end of the first 45 minutes, Juninho created a bit of space for himself inside the 18-yard box, as the 26-year old went to shoot and slipped, which stopped a dangerous opportunity for the home side.
Dallas had the first half-chance of the second half as their goal scorer had a weak shot attempt held comfortably by Ricketts, three minutes after the interval. Steven Gerrard finally got into the action forcing the Dallas shot stopper to go full stretch to stop the former Liverpool midfielder's free kick from 25 yards away.
Three minutes before the hour mark, Robbie Keane came extremely close to finding his second of the match before seeing his shot from outside of the penalty box smack off the cross bar. Moments later, however, the third goal would finally be scored. Off of a corner, Omar Gonzalez had his initial shot stopped by Jesse Gonzalez. The rebound would fall straight to Gerrard who made absolutely no mistake and buried his effort.
There would be just one more goal scored after that and was a mere consolation goal for Dallas with Atiba Harris scoring his side's second goal after Galaxy's defense was calling for an offside.
Even though the Galaxy are back on top of the Conference, a couple of teams below them have games in hand which should make these last few matches of Major League Soccer's regular season very interesting.