For 90 minutes, Wednesday night’s U.S. Open Cup semifinal between FC Dallas and the L.A. Galaxy wasn’t particularly exciting, and it headed to extra time at 0-0. However, things then got much weirder. The Galaxy managed to take a 1-0 lead in the 101st minute when Giovanni dos Santos drew a penalty and Mike Magee converted it:
.@oficialGio draws the penalty and @Magee18 buries it to give @LAGalaxy a 1-0 extra time lead. #USOC2016 #LAvDALhttps://t.co/U5FKlg1Su2
— U.S. Open Cup (@opencup) August 11, 2016
The second 15-minute half of extra time saw a different story, though. In the 116th minute, less than five minutes from the end of the 30-minute overtime, the visitors’ Matt Hedges equalized with a header off a Mauro Diaz corner:
The equalizer.#USOC2016 #LAvDAL https://t.co/RnwOVEZC1w
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) August 11, 2016
At that point, everything looked set for penalty kicks. That wouldn’t be the case, though, as the Galaxy again did a poor job of marking on a corner kick in the first minute of added time, and Victor Ulloa made them pay:
The winner.#USOC2016 #LAvDAL https://t.co/YCi9BLBcTf
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) August 11, 2016
That’s quite the finish, and quite the comeback for Dallas. It was Ulloa’s first career U.S. Open Cup goal, too, and the first semifinals winner in second-overtime stoppage time. It was also only the third game-winner in the 120th minute or later since 1995. The win means that FC Dallas will host the New England Revolution in the final, in a rematch of the 2007 U.S. Open Cup final. We’ll see if they have more magic up their sleeves for that one.
