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Union’s Tai Baribo First to 10 MLS Goals After Stoppage-Time Winner Over LA Galaxy
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Home draws are bad and road draws are good, but it doesn’t matter because Tai Baribo’s stoppage-time winner on Wednesday night earned the Union all three points and spared us another Negadelphia conversation:
If you want to break out the “tale of two halves” cliche, this game fits the bill. The Union really struggled in the first 45, a couple of hideous turnovers from Danley and Jovan Lukic serving as the catalyst for two LA goals. Mind you, this was a Galaxy team coming off a 7-0 loss in North Jersey on Saturday night, a banged-up team with zero wins on the season. It had all the makings of a classic trap game, then Bradley Carnell must have lit an inferno under their asses at half time, because they nicked back two goals immediately and kept pushing and pushing until the 96th-minute equalizer.
For Baribo, that’s 10 goals on the season. He’s the first to double digits in MLS and currently in the lead for the Golden Boot race. There’s plenty of soccer left to play but value on his Golden Boot odds.
What’s important is that he seems to have rediscovered his form after a bit of a lull. He scored six goals in the first three games, then went four games without scoring, got one against Atlanta off the bench, then went three scoreless and now has three goals in his last two games. It’s been clumpy from him, streaky, but it really just reinforces what we already knew about him, and most strikers, if we’re being honest. If they don’t get service, they’re probably not going to score.
To that point, his last four goals were:
- a point-blank header on a Michael Uhre chip
- a near-post header from left-footed Danley service into the box
- far-post header from right-footed Quinn Sullivan service into the box
- right-footed finish, direct transition and Sullivan service from edge of box
That’s four occasions where he put himself into a good position and teammates picked him out. He’s not going to turn, face, and dribble an opponent. He’s not a back-to-goal center forward, though he pulled off a nice bit of hold-up play on Frankie Westfield’s Saturday goal. He’s like a hybrid of Chris Wondolowski and former Union forward Jack McInerney, those finisher/poacher types of guys who just really know how to position themselves and float off back shoulders, wriggle free and turn home good looks. As long as teammates are picking him out, he’ll finish.
Don’t let Tai Baribo get hot!
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com