CARSON, Calif. -- The LA Galaxy might have been satisfied with their 1-0 victory in last weekend's home leg of their Western Conference Championship with the Seattle Sounders, just not with the margin of victory, which easily could have been more.
The Galaxy ought to have scored two or three goals, and a lot of the credit for that goes to Stefan Ishizaki, whose expert work on the right flank fueled LA's attacking dominance most of the afternoon.
The 32-year-old Swedish midfielder, who had started just three of the previous eight games as head coach Bruce Arena opted for the more defensive-minded Baggio Husidic, nearly doubled the Galaxy's advantage with a 61st-minute free kick that caromed off the bottom of the crossbar.
His runs on the right and partnership with an overlapping A.J. DeLaGarza were nearly as valuable for LA, which need Sunday in Seattle (9:20 pm ET, ESPN) a draw or victory -- or a one-goal defeat in which they score -- to advance to the Dec. 7 MLS Cup final.
The Sounders focused defensively on the left side of the Galaxy's attack, targeting Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane, and Ishizaki responded with one of his better performances since joining the club last offseason.
“Obviously, they're going to mark Landon and Robbie closely, because they're a threat all the time, and that gives me a little more space on the right, and that's what I like,” said Ishizaki, a finalist for MLS' Newcomer of the Year honor. “[My performance] wasn't all about crossing -- I took the defender [Leo Gonzalez] on a bit more and ran at him a couple of times, and I thought I did well, so I kept on doing it.”
It was a pivotal showing, his teammates agreed. Keane after the game noted that “Ishi had a lot of joy on his side,” and Donovan dared the Sounders to use a similar approach this weekend at CenturyLink Field.
“We made adjustments from those two games we played them [in October], and we feel comfortable about where they are now,” Donovan said. “If they want to overload one side, then we'll exploit them on the other side, like we did today.”
Arena expects Ishizaki to make a difference whenever he's called upon.
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“He's a good passer, he can combine with other players, a good crosser of the ball, good on set pieces,” Arena said. “He missed a goal by probably a fraction of an inch. … He's been a real positive addition to our team.”
The Galaxy's plan is to push the attack again in the second leg, just as they did in their previous two visits to Seattle, a 3-0 romp in late July and the 2-0 loss, in which they were dominant the first 80 minutes, in the regular-season finale.
“We need to be a little bit cleaner in the final third …,” Ishizaki said. “We've got to be really clean, 100 percent focused the whole game. We've got to be aggressive and press them. We've got to make it hard for them to play. That's when they get frustrated, and that's when we can take advantage of them.”
