Sunday, April 27 | 4:00 p.m. PT
🏟: BMO Stadium - Los Angeles, CA
🖥: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV (free for Apple TV+ subscribers)
LAFC welcomes St. Louis City SC to BMO Stadium on Sunday in a matchup of the last two first-place finishers in the Western Conference.
LAFC and St. Louis—who currently sit in 7th and 12th place, respectively, in the West—have shown glimpses of the form that brought St. Louis the conference’s top seed in the club’s inaugural season, 2023, and helped LAFC earn Best in the West status in 2024 for the third time in its seven-year history.
Earlier this month LAFC took defending Supporters’ Shield winners Inter Miami to the brink in their Concacaf Champions Cup Quarterfinal matchup, falling by a single goal on aggregate (3-2) before responding with a two-game unbeaten streak in league play. St. Louis, meanwhile, has announced itself as a defensive force. No club has allowed fewer goals in MLS this season (6).
RECENT RUN
LAFC (4W-4L-1D) is coming off a rousing comeback in Portland that saw the Black & Gold fall behind the Timbers twice before securing a 3-3 draw in stoppage time through a Denis Bouanga penalty kick. Bouanga assisted David Martínez on LAFC’s second goal, while its first was scored on an Olivier Giroud free kick that marked the French striker’s first goal in MLS play after joining LAFC in 2024 from AC Milan and notching goals in the two finals the Black & Gold appeared in last year.
St. Louis (2W-4L-3D) hosted the conference-leading Whitecaps last Saturday and held the league’s second-highest scoring team without a goal. The 0-0 draw was City’s fifth clean sheet of the 2025 regular season, and it marked the first time the Caps had been held to just one shot on goal this year.
Roman Burki, the 2023 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, missed the Vancouver match – and the five matches before that – due to a fractured right hand he suffered in practice in mid-March. Burki had shut out all three opponents he faced in City’s first three games. Since then, 29-year-old German keeper Ben Lundt has filled in admirably, with two clean sheets in six starts.
OUT AND IN
New head coach Olof Mellberg has had to do without several other key players thus far, including midfielders Rasmus Alm (hip), Chris Durkin (knee) and Eduard Löwen (non-injury reasons). The absence of Löwen’s offense (the German is the club’s second-leading scorer over the last two years) was addressed on Wednesday when City acquired winger Xande Silva from Atlanta United prior to the close of Major League Soccer’s Primary Transfer Window.
LAFC has also missed key contributors, including defender Maxime Chanot (head). Forward Jeremy Ebobisse and defender Marlon returned recently from short-term leg injuries. The Black & Gold added midfield depth at the close of the Transfer Window by acquiring SoCal native Frankie Amaya on loan from Toluca FC of Liga MX. On Thursday LAFC signed free agent midfielder Ryan Raposo, a key part of the Whitecaps' success over the last five years.
Amaya’s and Raposo's availability for Sunday’s match is uncertain.
THE SERIES
Since St. Louis entered MLS in 2023, it has yet to score a goal against LAFC in four total matches. LAFC is 3W-0L-1D in those matches and has scored four of its six goals in the series at BMO Stadium.
LAFC CAN WIN IF
its front line cooks. The three forwards atop LAFC’s 4-3-3 formation found a rhythm against Portland last weekend, with Giroud turning in a second straight strong performance as the tip of the spear. The French center forward excelled in hold-up play and by battling in the air near the center circle.
Had it not been for two razor-thin offside calls, LAFC would have dropped five goals on a Timbers team that had only allowed 10 in eight games before that. Giroud had an assist taken away, and midfielder Mark Delgado’s team-high two assists on the year nearly became three. Both negated goals were finished by Bouanga, whose confidence is rising.
ST. LOUIS CAN WIN IF
its defense keeps the game close. City posted clean sheets against San Diego (4th in the West in goals scored), Colorado (T-6th), and Seattle (8th), before blanking high-flying Vancouver (2nd) last weekend. Clearly this team can protect its goal. Mellberg, the former center back who became an Aston Villa legend and Sweden’s captain through his fearless back line play, has instilled his personality into the side he was recently hired to lead.
