In an intriguing 2014 MLS Cup Final, MLS League and Cup Final MVP Robbie Keane scored the game winning goal in the 111th minute to allow the LA Galaxy to defeat the New England Revolution and win a record 5th MLS Cup title. Landon Donovan ends his career by winning his record breaking 6th MLS Cup title as a player.
The first half was a rather dull half. Except for a late Donovan yellow card and a controversial non PK call on Lee Nguyen, there wasn’t much to talk about in the first half.
The scoring started with Gyasi Zardes in the 52nd minute. Zardes took the cross, held off Andrew Farrell and put LA up 1-0. Zardes became the first homegrown player to score in an MLS Cup Final.
After about 25 minutes of back and forth play between both teams, New England got on the board with a Chris Tierney equalizer. That made it 1-1 in the 79th minute.
Both teams had a chance to put the game away in the tense final 10 minutes of regular time. As the teams were feeling each other out again in the first extra time period, Keane scored the go ahead goal that ultimately turned out to be the winner.
New England is going to regret a few chances where their players went the selfish route to try and score on their own. Instead of passing it off to an open player or trying to find open looks for shots, the Revolution seemed to try to take it upon themselves to score and didn’t have as good of a shot as they should’ve.
This MLS Cup Final is going to be remembered as the final game of Landon Donovan’s career. We have given our tribute to the legend like everyone else and there’s not much more to say about the man that hasn’t been said since he announced his retirement. With the departures of Donovan, Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill, MLS is going to enter a different era for their 20th season. It’s going to be a busy offseason (expansion teams, CBA, Superdraft) and the 2015 MLS season will be here before you know it.
