NYCFC youngster notches wild first career goal in victory
LOS ANGELES – Jonathan Lewis grabbed his Oscar in La La Land.
In just his third start for New York City FC, the 20-year-old rookie didn’t shy away from the lights of Los Angeles, where he bent in a miraculous first career goal to push NYCFC past the LA Galaxy, 2-0, in front of 25,667 at the Stubhub Center on Saturday night.
“He scored one of the nicest goals that we’re going to see,” said NYCFC coach Patrick Vieira. “Outside of the goal, I was happy with the way he worked for the team.”
Vieira reminded that Lewis is young and still needs time to develop, but on a night where NYCFC had stage fright, especially in the first half, Lewis looked like an established veteran when he opened his scoring account.
After his shot went over Galaxy goalkeeper Brian Rowe and smacked the crossbar, Lewis seemed so shocked he botched his celebration when he came up slow on the knee slide and rolled over in front of the NYCFC bench.
“I knew I wanted to do a knee slide,” laughed Lewis. “That’s been a dream of mine when I scored my first professional goal to do a knee slide. It didn’t come off nice though. It was pretty bad actually.”
While Lewis’ goal had all the makings of picture perfect, it was goalkeeper Sean Johnson who made an ugly first half look just fine.
Johnson made acrobatic saves left-and-right especially when he punched a blistering effort from outside the box by Galaxy wingback Pele van Anholt in the 39th minute. That save, in retrospect, stalled the Galaxy from grabbing momentum and going on top into halftime.
Johnson said his biggest save was against Galaxy forward Gyasi Zardes when he blocked his blistering shot in the 41st minute.
“I just felt like nothing was going to beat me on the day,” said Johnson on the save. “We didn’t know the barrage was coming for the rest of the game after that, but we just locked in at that point.”
With United States head coach Bruce Arena in attendance, Johnson, who finished with five total saves, showed he deserves a look on the national team.
Captain David Villa continued his run of brilliance when he added the insurance goal in the 73rd minute with a left-footed attempt through traffic. Villa, who leads MLS with 18 goals, now has nine goals in his last six matches.
While NYCFC (43 points) celebrated by dancing in the locker room, the escape from LA didn’t come without some disappointment. Midfielder Alex Ring and defender Ethan White both picked up yellow cards, which will keep the pair out against the New England Revolution with a yellow card accumulation suspension next Sunday at home.
“It’ll give other players to show how good they are and show me that they deserve to play,” said Vieira about the losses.