Rivalry Week: Who took bragging rights in 2025? | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

MLS Rivalry Week 2025 came and went, not without delivering big blowouts, major upsets and unforgettable moments that only derbies can provide.

Here's how the league's fiercest rivalries played out over the past two matchdays.

Acadian agony

CF MONTRÉAL 1-6 TORONTO FC

I’ll venture to say no one comes out of Rivalry Week hurting more than CF Montréal, whose painstaking recovery of the past few weeks crashed to a sudden halt with this absolute curbstomping in their own house from Toronto FC. It had varsity vs. JV scrimmage vibes by full time.

It stings that much worse because they mostly dominated — Giacomo Vrioni capped a well-worked opener, only to be waved off by a fair offside decision — until Joel Waterman’s rash tackle on Ola Brynhildsen in the 21st minute. That drew a debilitating DOGSO red card that allowed TFC’s attacking talent, Fede Bernardeschi in particular, to run riot against an increasingly dispirited CFM side.

Here are two key perspectives on this game-changing moment, the first from Reds boss Robin Fraser, who compared Brynhildsen – a Norwegian No. 9 whose winter arrival from FC Midtjylland has been marred by injuries, adaptation and some culture shock – to MLS great Carlos “Pescadito” Ruiz, the 2002 league MVP infamous for both his goals and his guile back in the ‘00s. (Brynhildsen also bagged a goal and an assist and could be crucial to hopes of a Reds revival in 2025.)

“Creating the red card the way he did, he's so good at holding the ball. He's a tough forward for center backs to deal with, because he initiates contact,” said Fraser, himself a two-time MLS Defender of the Year. “He reminds me of Carlos Ruiz, who I used to play against, and I think his ability to hold defenders, use his body, it's such a weapon.”

Meanwhile, CFM’s interim boss Marco Donadel, after apologizing for this disastrous result, admitted he was too slow to change his team’s structure after the ejection, their early superiority leading him to an overly aggressive approach that left space for TFC to snatch two costly goals for a 3-0 halftime deficit which set the stage for things to spin out of control after the break.

“I feel a bit even more sorry than the players, because probably it's my mistake at that moment [of the red card], because I waited a bit to make a sub. Because I was feeling that 11v11, we were really dominating them. So I try to keep the same, the same way that we play,” said Donadel.

“At that moment, I had to change immediately, put in another central back,” he added, later alluding to collective “mistakes to manage the game … but the first mistake is mine.”

The Italian was in a tough spot here, something we’ve said about many who’ve walked through Montréal’s revolving door of coaches. As a former star player for the club, he knows as much as anyone about how much the Canadian Classique means, and there’s bravery in that damn-the-torpedoes mentality… until your last-place team is getting pummeled by a hated rival to such a bruising extent that it could leave a nasty hangover to dig out of in the coming days, weeks, maybe months.

As dire as they were for most of the spring, TFC are 3W-3L-0D in the league over the past month and for now at least, it seems Fraser is coaxing both quality and commitment out of their mercurial Italians, Bernardeschi and Lorenzo Insigne. I’m not sure I’m ready to buy stock yet, but if you turn the screen and squint a bit, this starts to resemble a functional, perhaps even dangerous team.

Hangin’ tough, staying’ Cole with ‘Rapids ball’

COLORADO RAPIDS 1-0 REAL SALT LAKE

Cole Bassett was going through it.

The Colorado Rapids homegrown was laid out on the grass at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, dazed from a stray hand to the eye from Justen Glad after the Real Salt Lake defender fouled him to slow a transition moment in the 66th minute of their Rocky Mountain Cup clash.

Looking disoriented, having already run a great deal in this choppy, tetchy, still-scoreless tussle, Bassett needed a minute or two, part of it spent dousing his eyeball with drops to help clear his vision. Rapids coach Chris Armas elected to play with 10 men while his rangy center mid tried to compose himself, though you could imagine the temptation to just throw on a fresh pair of willing legs, as he would eventually do later, swapping Cole for his younger brother Sam after he picked up yet another knock.

Armas waited. Bassett gamely reentered the match, followed a Colorado buildup into the RSL penalty box a few moments later and poached the game’s decisive moment. Braian Ojeda’s fleeting hesitation to clear allowed Bassett to snatch possession, then quickly tap back to Djordje Mihailovic for a clinical finish into the bottom corner for what proved a 1-0 ‘Pids W.

“Cole, he has an incredible engine on him,” said Mihailovic later, praising his hard-running teammate for finding the oasis of calm in the heat of an RMC brawl for just his second assist of the season.

“The box zone is the most difficult spot, because you feel like you have no time, and for him to have the composure, the awareness, to relax in that moment, see the extra pass – yeah, it's great. And maybe this season he's not getting the stats that he wants like he had last year, but I guess my words to him are to just keep going.”

On the flip side, Pablo Mastroeni had already made a different choice in a comparable situation. Despite Diego Luna having been, as usual, at the heart of Salt Lake’s best moments in attack with a game-high 6/7 successful dribbles and 7/9 duels won, the coach subbed him out just shy of the hour mark, detecting flagging fitness levels in RSL’s talisman.

Luna’s displeasure at an early hook was evident, as Mastroeni admitted with something approaching approval in his postgame press conference. This also included long stretches of frustrated breakdowns of how comprehensively Luna’s attacking teammates have failed to match his level, while still not quite fully explaining why he nevertheless had to remove such a vital presence from a deadlocked derby.

“He's a competitor, and that's what we need. We need personality in that attacking third,” said Mastroeni of Luna and his expressions of frustration. “Last game, where in the 70th minute, he was running on fumes, right? Then you go into this game and it's about that time he wasn't getting near the ball, and it just felt like some fresh legs could go in,” adding that he understood this was “a gamble to take” under the circumstances.

Despite plenty of the ball, RSL finished the night with an expected-goals total of 0.4. And that was with Nicolas Hansen, Colorado’s second-team goalkeeper, age 23 and freshly promoted from MLS NEXT Pro, minding the nets – his second career MLS start, and on short notice due to a rib injury ruling out Zack Steffen just hours before the match.

“The quality in the final third is lacking … and the only one that's able to play beyond the tactics and make plays is Diego Luna,” added Mastroeni, who mused about needing to “add some more pace and power up front.” RSL have won just one of their last seven, scoring a paltry six goals in that span.

I still don’t understand why he took Luna out.

Colorado stumbled into this one on a five-game winless skid, and from my seat, showed a bit more desperation to win here. In addition to yanking Luna, Salt Lake also brought Emeka Eneli, Dominik Marczuk and Alex Katranis off the bench, which may well have been an unavoidable concession to a three-game week in rotational terms, but doesn’t feel like going quite all-out to take pole position in the RMC.

Armas did his part by adapting well to the absence of frontrunner Rafa Navarro. The 'Pids shifted to a 4-2-3-1 that arrayed bodies around Luna quickly in the defensive third without compromising Colorado’s desire to press high where advisable, another homegrown – Darren Yapi – grinding alone up top for 89 minutes.

“Look, there's a lot that goes into ‘Rapids ball,’” explained Armas. “Djordje has been playing with Cole in the 4-2-2-2, we've been playing with two strikers. We had a plan tonight to play in a 4-2-3-1, the three meaning Cole, Djordje as a pure 10, and Kévin [Cabral] with Yapi. And we did that for a few reasons, but, even in possession, it gives us a little bit more, gives us a better ability to keep the ball at times, to overload some areas where we thought we can expose them.

“We were trying to get certain guys going and I think it helped us breathe a little bit with the ball.”

Serbian spite, served with a smile

ST. LOUIS CITY SC 2-2 SPORTING KANSAS CITY

Sporting Kansas City’s midweek rally from 2-0 down at halftime to 2-2 winners (see what I did there?) over St. Louis CITY SC is a few days old by now, and best contemplated via Justin Horneker’s dispatch from Energizer Park.

But the true spirit of KC’s comeback deserves a few more words here, too, because with four of six points taken off their cross-state counterparts, they’re injecting life in their own season by directly draining some from the bad guys to their east, and are in Darbecue (or is it Governor’s Cup? Cease & Desist Derby? Midwesterners, have we settled on this yet? Let me know on Bluesky) pole position pending any possible postseason rematch later in the year.

“It looks like I like these derby games,” wisecracked Dejan Joveljić, whose equalizer runs his tally against STL to three goals in two games. “Can we play them maybe every week? That would be awesome.”

Clutch goals and spicy banter are great ways to endear yourself to a new fan base, and the Serb showed during his years out at LA Galaxy that he knows the way to win those hearts. (All the best to him and his wife Anđela as they prepare to welcome their first child into the world.) So is this:

That’s Shapi Suleymanov, who set up Joveljić with an inviting flighted free-kick delivery, making new friends down by the touchline in Mound City. A tip of the cap to interim coach Kerry Zavagnin, who took action to plug in Suleymanov after halftime, leading to one assist, and reap another from another sub, Tim Leibold, who fired home the Sporks’ well-crafted first strike to spark the turnaround.

“He's such a nice guy and has integrated himself with the group,” said Zavagnin of Suleymanov’s heel turn. “But when he gets on the field, he's a completely different person. He puts the mask on, if you will, and does embrace that villain role. He doesn't really care what people think or say or do from the fan perspective. I think that actually energizes him. For us, I think that helps us, it helps us from an energy and an emotional level, that we can join him.”

Goalkeeper John Pulskamp, too, deserves a mention here, because as many goals as he’s got showing in his box scores, some of his shot-stopping has been otherworldly as he bails out his chronically rickety back line again and again.

Meanwhile, STL’s downward spiral continues, and may be approaching doom-spiral status. The Ravioli Boyz’ late concessions vs. SKC marked the fourth straight game in which they allowed two goals after the 70th minute, and they very nearly did it again in Saturday’s comprehensive 3-0 setback at Minnesota, where the Loons broke them down in the 33rd, 62nd and 78th minutes.

Olof Mellberg & Co. have won just two league matches in 2025, sit 27th in the overall league table and arguably are skidding along on a markedly worse run of form than the one that preceded the departure of coach Bradley Carnell last summer.

Sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel described himself as “embarrassed” by their latest display in a local radio interview, alluding to the need to show spirit in the wake of the severe storms that had just ravaged the area, one of a few soundbytes I would categorize as eyebrow-raising as it pertains to where the men in magenta go from here.

Pigeons turn the tables

New York City FC 2-0 New York Red Bulls

No originality prizes on this little nugget. But in a Clásico with any levels of bile to it – and some would say bile is a primary ingredient in the waterway that grants the Hudson River Derby its name – you’ve got to want it enough, or at least want them to not get it enough, to get a little down and dirty.

There just wasn’t enough of it on tap for the New York Red Bulls at Citi Field on Saturday afternoon, certainly nowhere near the levels they summoned to produce their memorable upset of New York City FC at the same ballpark during last year’s Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.

The Pigeons pressed harder, won more duels, made more tackles, lumped twice as many clearances and were generally a step more aggressive than RBNY en route to a 2-0 victory, and for dyed-in-the-wool purveyors of a global energy-drink-soccer ideology, that’s nigh unforgivable in an HRD.

“One of our principles is forcing mistakes on opponents by the intensity that we play in possession, and out of possession – and when we regain possession, try to go forward as fast as we can,” City boss Pascal Jansen said afterwards.

And Alonso Martínez made himself the walking embodiment of that, turning a sloppy early Red Bulls turnover into a jaw-dropping strike from distance to tip the game state in the home side’s favor in a flash. This is a BANGER:

The Costa Rican did it again very early in the second half, jumping all over Carlos Coronel’s howler like “a fighter pilot jacked up on Mountain Dew,” in Paul Harvey’s pleasantly fizzy turn of phrase, to notch an assist on Maxi Moralez’s clincher. That one draws El Frasquito level with David Villa and Taty Castellanos for most career goals scored (five) for NYCFC against their rivals.

That allowed NYCFC to sit back and manage the rest of the game, daring the red half of New York to break them down with the ball. As much as they’ve tried to address their buildup play lately, it’s still not all that incisive for Sandro Schwarz’s bunch. Stars Emil Forsberg (45 touches, zero successful dribbles, 2/9 duels won, zero fouls won, subbed off at 77’) and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting (33 touches, two shots, zero on target, one key pass in 90’) didn’t really answer the call, and thus a solitary Dennis Gjengaar effort was RBNY's only shot on target all day.

Last year’s MLS Cup finalists are now 0W-5L-2D on the road with a -9 goal differential and just four goals scored away from home. Overall, panning out to a wider angle, it’s actually even worse, aside from that amazing postseason run:

“In a lot of moments, especially in the final third,” said Schwarz, “we don't play quick enough, [aren’t] aggressive enough in our ball possession. When you have the ball 64%, that's a good number, but at the end it’s not the best number. It's more important how many touches you have in the box, how many big chances you have. We did not create good enough chances, and then we made two individual mistakes, how we concede the goals.”

Notably, the Pigeons handled their work quite competently without usual engine-room linchpin Keaton Parks. A share of that owes to Australian international Aiden O’Neill, a late-window signing from Standard Liège who may turn out to be quite useful for Jansen, going 90 minutes, and solid ones, for the first time in his three City appearances, as well as maturing homegrown Justin Haak, who assisted on the opener.

“For Aiden it's been a good buildup towards this moment,” said Jansen. “He pushed it to 90 and that’s a big, big compliment to him. And you can also see why he's been brought into our dressing room, because he can connect, he can control, and he has a good view of going forward with his passes and keeping balance in the team. Especially when Keats is not available, that’s something we really, really need in the team.”

Yet it’s still Maxi, age 38, making his third start in a week, who holds the keys to the Pigeons’ wagon. I suppose you have to respect Jansen’s Dutch bluntness in confirming as much, both by giving him his eighth full 90 of the season and saying exactly why afterwards.

“I always want to keep Maxi Moralez in his strength, because he is by far our most progressive and creative player creating chances,” said the manager when asked about playing the misfiring Mounsef Bakrar out of position. “So we have to keep him in the areas where he can be as dangerous as can be. So Mounsef will help us wherever the team needs him.”

Hammer, tongs and a road point in Hell is Real

COLUMBUS CREW 1-1 FC CINCINNATI

The Ohio grudge match served up a purist’s delight, downtown Columbus crackling as the Crew and FC Cincinnati reminded us of their yin-and-yang relationship with a 1-1 deadlock.

Cincy drew first blood, smashing the glass plate marked ‘$30 million+ in Designated Player spending,’ via a long, mazy run from the spectacular Luca Orellano leading to a penalty-box entry, one poorly dealt with by the Columbus defense, thus leading to an improvisational moment by Evander to sniff out an unmarked Kévin Denkey at the back post for a vital early lead.

Wilfried Nancy’s Crew, as is their nature, responded to that blunt-force action with a litany of cuts and thrusts from the most intricate model of Swiss Army multitool on the market, utterly submerging FCC’s increasingly beleaguered rearguard with interminable stretches of domination. The momentum charts from this one tell the story: the guys in yellow camped out on the visitors’ end (even with Nancy only using one of his five substitutions despite their midweek trip to Quebec) only for their final action to fall short time and again.

Both coaches were honest about the eye test.

“What I'll say is, I'm proud of the way the guys represented the club on a night where we were second best,” Cincy’s Pat Noonan said, who made no bones about his awareness that in the long run, his team needs other answers for rough nights like this. “They showed good character on a night where we really, really struggled to make the right decisions in transition, make the right decisions or have the right composure to just try to play and [Columbus] punished us. That's a hard-fought point, but I think we're fortunate.

“You saw what a game looks like against a very good Columbus team when you can't connect passes, and you don't have that confidence, and then it's just 'Here we go again. Here we go again.' You could feel that, especially in the second half.”

And yet, even with the field firmly tilted in their favor, the home faithful collectively, palpably willing them on, Nancy’s side needed a stroke of luck to scare up a penalty kick leveler, Nick Hagglund unlucky to have Diego Rossi flick the ball right into his hand not long after intermission. With five saves, Roman Celentano was immense:

Kudos for the Crew’s persistence can coexist with concern about another barren display in front of goal, one of several since the sale of Cucho Hernández, far and away their most reliable finisher in the Nancy era.

“I felt all the emotion. I was yelling, I was crying internally, I was shouting and I was smiling. We were almost there,” said the coach. “That's why football is so difficult. There are certain things, sometimes this is irrational. I saw like you, and my players felt it like you. They are the [most] disappointed because they know that we could have scored more goals.

“I'm confident that it will come.”

From another point of view? The Crew looked one piece short yet again, at the very least until Dániel Gazdag can break his duck. Maybe sometimes it takes an adversary to deliver the cold reality you don’t want to hear, but need to:

As laborious as this result was, as unsatisfied as Noonan understandably is – there’s good insight on that facet from Carter Chapley over on FCC’s site – and as early as the DP trio is in their chemistry cultivation, they're joint-tops with Philly in both the Eastern Conference and Shield races, and are one of just two teams still undefeated on home turf. Pretty OK!

“Here we are talking about this, and we're in a pretty good place,” Noonan noted. “That's why I think we can be a very dangerous team: We're not at our best.”

Cascadian control in Rave Green

PORTLAND TIMBERS 1-1 SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC

Out in Cascadia, another 1-1, Portland and Seattle’s, reminded us why that's still the grand old lady of rivalries for many of us, with a hoary history matched by vitality on the pitch in the here and now. First and foremost, pass of the week, and it’s not particularly close, goes to Cristian Roldan for his DIME on the opener:

The Sounders are not really a ‘direct’ team per se; they’re built more on the concept of control, and control the lion’s share of this duel they did. But they know direct footy can indeed be gorgeous footy, requiring speed of thought, collective patterns and technical virtuosity. Danny Musovski tracks down Roldan’s searching ball and finds Albert Rusnák immediately in Zone 14. Here’s where some tribute needs to be paid to the smooth, steady Slovakian, and not just for the clever low finish through Finn Surman’s legs and past Max Crépeau that apparently everyone wearing Rave Green saw coming.

“Classic Albert Rusnák goal,” said coach Brian Schmetzer. “As soon as he got the ball on his foot, I knew he was going to score. He's done that countless times in his career. He's coming across the goal this way, he waits for the defender to open his legs, puts it back across the goalkeeper -–classic Albert goal. I thought he was very good tonight, very influential.”

For some time there’s been a low buzz of Rusnák skepticism among a sector of SSFC supporters who question whether he’s really worth the DP slot he occupies and the wages he earns. Hopefully it quells a bit after nights like this. His technical ability is sky-high – for what it’s worth, his dad’s a pretty accomplished coach back home – and there’s an ease about his contributions in all phases of the game that can disguise how good he really is.

In essence, he’s doing for Seattle what Nico Lodeiro did for all those fruitful years in the previous decade – knitting the whole room together – just in more understated fashion.

“He creates so much for us,” said Alex Roldan, Rusnák’s roomie on road trips. “He's always looking to get players in better positions to contribute with either goals or assists, and he has very underrated qualities that people take for granted. So when he gets into that position to look to shoot, his quality shows. I mean, as soon as that ball went to him, I knew he was going through the legs. It's his signature move.

“We rely on him a lot to create these moments. And when he's not in those positions, we can see how it affects our team.”

Timbers coach Phil Neville was mostly critical of his side, who mustered a very modest 0.6 xG despite the energy pulsating through Providence Park, lamenting their “sloppy,” “careless” nature in possession before concluding that “a draw was probably the best result we could have had” given the Sounders’ quality.

“I thought that made us a bit nervous and we went into survival mode, which is not what we’re about,” added the Englishman. “I told them that my expectation of them is better than what I saw tonight,” he added. “We’re a young team and [Seattle are] an experienced team, and we were naïve.”

With hindsight, I imagine he’ll see the value of the moments of grit they showed to claw back to level terms before halftime, Santi Moreno starting and finishing a flowing counterattack in front of the Timbers Army to keep PTFC three points ahead of the Sounders in the West standings.

Word is Bond as Texas trends Naranja

FC DALLAS 0-2 HOUSTON DYNAMO FC

You’ve surely heard the salty old truism: ‘goals change games,’ and it’s a truism because it’s true. Yet it’s also true that saves can change games, too, and so was the case in stormy Frisco, Texas, where severe thunderstorms delayed kickoff at Toyota Stadium and added a tinge of after-hours weirdness to this battle for El Capitán, that big ol’ cannon that serves as the hardware for this derby.

It felt like a distant footnote by full time, but FC Dallas had the Houston Dynamo in hell for much of the first half, waves of pressure forcing La Naranja back into their own end as Lucho Acosta orchestrated flowing transitions amid willing runners. Then Anderson Julio embarked on a surging run and lashed an incredible bid to chip Jonathan Bond from the halfway line when he saw Houston’s ‘keeper well off his line…

You might say Bond merely saved himself from embarrassment. I’d say he also gave his team a timely wakeup call or jolt of energy, following it up with a superb fingertips deflection of a Shaq Moore piledriver to help the Dynamo escape into the locker room at 0-0.

By living to fight again after the break, H-town made space for young Jack McGlynn to dig into his bag and extend his increasingly regular habit of long-range missiles:

“We see that all of the time at training,” said his coach, Ben Olsen. “It’s a magical left foot.”

Yep, that’s an authentic Thunderbastard™, and there’s something almost Stephen Curry-esque about McGlynn’s boldness to let these fly from deeper and deeper. The Philly academy product has contributed 3g/3a over the last 10 matches across all competitions, and with 2g/4a and 37 key passes in Houston's first 13 league games, he’s already more than halfway to eclipsing his career-best numbers from 2024 (4g/7a, 55 KPs).

“Just pass it to his left foot,” wisecracked fullback Griff Dorsey, who logged the easiest assist of the weekend by passing to McGlynn, then later showed his own inspiration by cutting inside and netting the night’s exclamation point with HIS left after a lung-bursting carry forward.

It gains HDFC possession of El Capitán for the first time in four years, and capped a suitably street-smart performance from the Orange sector of Texas. That’s a quality Olsen’s side need as a counterbalance to their preference for those pretty, fluid buildouts, and one still in short supply so early in the Eric Quill project at FCD.

Florida turns purple

INTER MIAMI CF 0-3 ORLANDO CITY SC

Inter Miami have basically owned Orlando City since Lionel Messi’s summer 2023 arrival in South Florida, going undefeated across four Clásico del Sol matches and outscoring the Lions 9-2. That stretch shuddered to a sudden halt at Chase Stadium Sunday evening, as Oscar Pareja’s crew deepened IMCF’s tailspin with an emphatic 3-0 thumping that could, probably should, have been even more one-sided.

It’s the largest margin of defeat a Messi team has suffered in a home league match in 313 home matches at club level, and while there are plenty of flaws to dissect on the Rosanegra at present, the discussion has to start with the shockingly inattentive defending that makes them prone to concede at almost any moment.

Orlando broke this game open with the simplest of punts from goalkeeper Pedro Gallese, right down Route 1, with no one in pink bothering to deal with this most basic of deliveries:

Messi was complaining keenly about what he thought was an illegal back pass to Gallese seconds before, and perhaps that drew too much of his teammates’ attention. But let’s be serious: Miami can’t live like this, with constant cracks appearing in their defensive foundation. In the seven games starting with their loss at Vancouver in the first leg of the Concacaf Champions Cup semifinals, the Herons have leaked an incredible 20 goals, and their results have flatlined accordingly. A 3W-6L-3D mark in their past 12 games across all comps since April 1 drives home the reality.

Look, Orlando deserve more extensive, detailed shine than I’m giving them here; their unbeaten streak is now up to 12 matches across all competitions, and Muriel’s belated ascension to a tier of performance commensurate with his DP status is a massive factor. They are legit. But whew, did IMCF make it easy for them here.

Messi implicitly nodded to the gravity of the Herons’ current situation by doing a rare postgame interview with MLS Season Pass’ excellent Michele Giannone, and if you’re thinking his comments sounded like a lot of conventional modern sports-speak, you’re not wrong – it’s just that this, too, means something when the GOAT delivers it at a moment and tone of his choosing like this.

“It hurts to lose another game,” said Messi in Spanish, pointing towards the looming test of the Club World Cup before declining to share an update about the status of his reported contract extension talks. “We’re going through a period of bad results, but we have to keep working and think about what’s coming.

“We have to keep going because it’s a complicated moment, but we’re all united, and now we’re really going to see if we’re a team. It’s in the difficult moments, because when everything is going well, it's very easy. But during tough times, like now, is when we have to be more united than ever, be a real team and get it done.”

There’s maybe some tea leaves to inspect here, some between-lines reading you can attempt on all that, and I’m sure many will in the coming days.

Galaxy, Reus play for pride

LA GALAXY 2-2 LAFC

El Tráfico never disappoints, does it? And this one served up picturesque encapsulations of both teams’ current flaws to boot.

Form and standings often count for essentially nothing in the very biggest derbies, and so it was for the still-winless-in-the-league LA Galaxy. After cycling through an unreal sequence of different shapes and flavors of losing over the past few weeks, the Gs dug deep to deny LAFC bragging rights despite the 18 points and 10 places between them in the West standings.

It turned heads, to say the least, when LA inked coach Greg Vanney to a new contract this week despite the record-setting hangover that’s dogged the squad since their MLS Cup triumph in December, one that by now transcends Riqui Puig’s absence and any other single factor. Vanney, though, found the right tactics and messaging to keep the Galaxy competitive here, dropping lines deeper to dial up the counterattacking nous that last year was such an important foil to the methodical possession sequences he’s known for.

And scoring first, yeah, that always helps.

That’s just the sort of one-touch, pass-and-move, goose-the-throttle dynamism that powered the cup run, Gabriel Pec, Marco Reus and Christian Ramírez combining beautifully to get Pec running downhill into space. As has become his Tráfico norm, Denis Bouanga responded with his own flash of brilliance from way outside the box, and rising homegrown youngster Nathan Ordaz marked his latest milestone with a clinical dispatching of Ryan Hollingshead’s delicious through ball to push the Black & Gold in front.

For what feels like the first time in months, the Galaxy flashed some champions’ mettle to punch back despite yet another blown lead, aided by some conservatism from LAFC’s Steve Cherundolo to sit tight with a 2-1 advantage and shuffle into a defensive shell.

Not a moment too soon, the Gs got a long-awaited breakout from Reus. The German fed Pec for a goal ruled off by a tight offside decision before writing himself into El Tráfico lore in the 87th minute with an impossible, dramatic dipping free kick to claim the point that his team deserved, for all their flaws.

“I mean, it’s a derby, and for the fans, it’s very important for them that we keep fighting. We still believe in us, and you saw it today,” Reus told MLS Season Pass sideline reporter Andrew Wiebe. “If we continue like this with the team chemistry and with not giving up, especially in this situation, we will come back.

“You have to stay together as a group, and that’s what we did.”

As strange as it seems to type this in May, the door is rapidly closing on their playoff hopes. But like the Vanney re-up, Sunday’s outcome hinted at some life left in the champs’ worn souls, and perhaps rosier long-term outlook from general manager Will Kuntz’s viewpoint. As for LAFC? Cherundolo’s tactical decisions and game management will continue to draw close scrutiny from an impatient fanbase.

“In a couple of key moments, we weren’t good enough to win the game,” said 'Dolo. “We can’t lose sight of the journey that we’re on for the entire season … We're on a good path.”