Mark Delgado scored and had an assist after halftime, Stephen Eustaquio also struck from long range and visiting LAFC defeated the nine-man Houston Dynamo 2-0 on Saturday night.
Son Heung-Min had secondary assists on both goals and also drew both red card fouls from his opponents as LAFC (2-0-0, 6 points) remained perfect through four matches in all competitions under new manager Marc Dos Santos.
In first-half stoppage time, Antonio Carlos raked down Son’s Achilles area and was shown a straight red card for violent conduct. In the 76th minute when it was 1-0, Agustin Bouzat pulled down Son on the break and was ruled to have denied an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
Hugo Lloris made two saves to keep his second clean sheet. Jonathan Bond stopped four shots for Houston (1-1-0, 3 points), which will have two weeks before its next match after a scheduled trip to New England next weekend was postponed because of delayed field installation.
Bouzat put a scare into LAFC early in the second half when he tried to catch Lloris off his line and struck the crossbar from near midfield.
But the visitors eventually had their lead in the 56th minute.
From Son’s short corner, Denis Bouanga fed the ball to Delgado above the left half of the penalty area. Delgado took a touch to his right, then unfurled a 24-yard curling effort that beat Bond to the bottom right corner.
Eustaquio — a Canada World Cup hopeful on loan from FC Porto — scored his first MLS goal six minutes after Bouzat’s dismissal on a similar sequence.
This time, it was Son who dribbled toward the penalty area from Bouanga’s short corner, then laid the ball to his right for Delgado, who spotted Eustaquio above the penalty arc.
Eustaquio took a controlling touch, then uncorked his own 25-yard strike through traffic, beyond Bond and into the bottom left corner in the 82nd minute.
Even 11-on-11, LAFC controlled affairs, holding 63% of the first-half possession, and leading 9-6 in shots and 2-1 in efforts on target before halftime.
Both LAFC efforts on goal came in the first 45 came in the same sequence, when Bouanga and Son forced consecutive saves from Bond in the 37th minute.
–Field Level Media
