A little over a week ago, Adama Diomande scored two goals in a 3-0 win over the Colorado Rapids. Not a stat that would jump off the page right away to those that have been following MLS in 2018. Diomande has 12 goals total this season and the Rapids have given up the third-most goals in the Western Conference.
What was remarkable about Diomande's brace? The two goals were his first in nearly three months for LAFC.
After that match, we did our weekly Anatomy Of... feature, where we ask players to break down the big goals, saves, or defensive plays from the past match - if you haven't checked those out, I highly recommend it. In last week's edition, we spoke to Aaron Kovar and Lee Nguyen, the providers of Diomande's two finishes against Colorado, about the goals. To start the piece, Kovar and Nguyen were given this line to finish:
"When Dio is scoring, this team is... "
To finish the line, Kovar went with "dangerous," while Nguyen said "unstoppable." Both great answers. But with all due respect to Kovar, Nguyen wins this version of the match. And there are numbers to prove it.
Since joining LAFC on May 2, Diomande has played in 16 matches for the Black & Gold. He's currently second on the team with 12 goals scored. Those 12 goals have come in seven matches for the striker. In the seven matches that Diomande has scored, LAFC has six wins and one loss. Couple that with the team's record during Diomande's nearly three-month goal drought when the team was 4-4-4, and you start to see why Nguyen was spot on by saying the team is "unstoppable" when Diomande scores - in total, LAFC are 5-5-8 when Diomande doesn't score, that includes all matches since he arrived at LAFC from Hull City.
But what exactly is it about Diomande's goals? The simple answer, of course, is that goals win matches. You can't win if you don't score. But of Diomande's goals this season, only one goal has figured into a match as the game-winner. There's got to be something more to his scoring, especially on a team with two other double-digit scorers in Carlos Vela and Diego Rossi.
The answer might be in the replay of LAFC's fourth goal against the Houston Dynamo on Friday night.
Okay, on first viewing you might be thinking to yourself that all you're seeing is a fantastic finish from Vela - and you're not wrong. But the entire run of play is dangerous, and likely the goal should have been scored by Rossi in this clip. Which is why Diomande's pivotal to the goal.
A little background first, in case you missed this match. At this point, Diomande had already scored LAFC's second of the night. The goal was the result of an almost telepathic connection with Vela. Diomande feinted to the near post before Vela rifled a pinpoint cross to the back post for the striker to tap in from five yards out.
On the fourth goal, Diomande's diagonal run across the defense attracts the attention of not one but both central defenders - remember, they'd already been beaten once by the Vela-to-Dio combination. Basically, Diomande rolled out the red carpet for Rossi to run through the center of the pitch and Vela to feed the ball. And this is where Diomande makes LAFC unstoppable.
In a team based on playing through the center of the pitch in order to attract the opposition and find creative players like Vela in space, the thrust of a center forward is crucial. Diomande's movements garner center backs' attention, keeping them from stepping forward to squeeze the space in front of the likes of Vela, Nguyen, Kovar, etc and opening areas behind backlines for other attackers to exploit. And when he's scoring, those movements are that much more effective - don't think for a second that those center backs didn't remember being burned by Vela and Diomande 25 minutes before the above goal.
LAFC is spoiled for choice with the likes of Christian Ramirez and Marco Ureña waiting in the wings at the center forward position. But when Diomande is moving and scoring like he was back in June and early July, LAFC is near impossible to stop.
