An hour after the final whistle of LAFC’s 3-0 Leagues Cup quarterfinal victory in Seattle, the team was gathered inside the jet that would take them home, awaiting takeoff, huddled around their phones.
LAFC had handled their on-field business. Now they were watching the end of the last remaining quarterfinal between Liga MX’s Club América and the Colorado Rapids, which would determine their next opponent.
When Rapids goalkeeper Zack Steffen converted his penalty kick in the tenth round of the deciding shootout, then seconds later watched América 'keeper Luis Malagón roll his attempt wide of goal, LAFC’s entire roster was watching too - on a runway at the Seattle airport.
Forward Kei Kamara and his teammates didn’t care who their opponent would be. “It doesn't really matter who it is because we have to dictate the game by the style of play that we play,” Kamara said. They were just football fans enjoying another wild ending in what has been a wild 47-team tournament, now reduced to four teams, with the 46th seed sending the top seed home.
As the wheels of their charter jet lifted off the runway, though, LAFC’s mental preparations for the Cinderella Rapids were already underway.
Head coach Steve Cherundolo had just watched his team dismantle a red-hot Sounders side that was coming off a four-nil drubbing of Mexican club Pumas UNAM. LAFC blanked Seattle on Saturday night, 3-0, by following the same recipe they’ve used in their previous four matchups with the Sounders (all wins) - an early goal to take control.
“It’s much different for us to chase the scoreline,” Cherundolo said after Saturday night’s win. “If we have to score we become, all of a sudden, vulnerable. We’ve been able to get up in the scoreline, and that falls right into our match plan. We are a very difficult side to handle and to beat once you go down in the scoreline.”
Saturday’s breakthrough goal came on a counterattacking run by left back Ryan Hollingshead, who finished an arcing rainbow pass from defender Maxime Chanot. Moments later, LAFC won two duels in the second phase of an attacking corner kick and got rewarded by a leaping, scissor-kick finish from Kamara that made the score 2-0.
“When you score a goal at that time, to put the team in a good position—second goal, lead coming into the half— it's a good way to do it,” Kamara said. “And we finished it off with all three points and we can take that home, move on to the next round.”
Don’t let LAFC’s 10-1 scoreline against Seattle over their last five meetings fool you, said midfielder Eduard Atuesta. “It's not an easy team. Their last two games Seattle beat Galaxy and Pumas, with a lot of goals. So it's not an easy team. We had a very good performance today, effective in key moments, and we knew how to suffer in the moments that Seattle dominated the ball and the possession.”
After that, said Kamara, “we were looking at our phones.”
RAPIDS REPRISE
Much has changed between LAFC and the Rapids since the Black & Gold fell to their fellow Leagues Cup semifinalists in a regular-season match on March 30 in Colorado.
Kamara made his LAFC debut in that afternoon’s 3-2 loss, after signing with the team the day before.
LAFC’s defending and tactical awareness had yet to congeal. The Black & Gold conceded two goals to the Rapids’ Djordje Mihailovic and another to Moise Bombito in that loss. In the 26 games LAFC has played since, goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and company have allowed three goals only twice, and have posted nine clean sheets, including a 3-0 defeat of Colorado in June.
Chanot had yet to join LAFC back in March. Now the Ligue 2 transfer stands at the center of a three-back alignment that has been nearly impenetrable in front of Lloris as of late.
Forward Olivier Giroud started for AC Milan on March 30 in a 2-1 win over Fiorentina. Another English Premier League veteran, midfielder Lewis O’Brien, went 90 minutes in a draw with Southampton. This week Giroud and O’Brien made their debuts in Black & Gold in a tournament they had likely never heard of five months ago.
On March 30, LAFC and Colorado sat near the middle of the Western Conference. Now they are in second and fourth place, respectively, with a do-or-die knockout match and a potential ticket to the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup on the line.
“We are in a great moment in the season,” midfielder Eduard Atuesta said in Spanish of the 17W-1L-3D run his club is enjoying. “We hope that we can continue to keep it because it is not easy to maintain a high level for a long time. So we have to relax.”
TACTICS TALK
Saturday’s Leagues Cup semifinal at BMO Stadium (7 p.m. PT on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV) presents a fascinating tactical matchup. Against top-seeded Club América, the Rapids played an LAFC-esque game in which it was happy to cede possession. América held the ball for 61 percent of the match, completing 601 passes to the Rapids’ 387. Colorado’s attack recorded just one shot on goal in regulation, and six shots total.
The Rapids’ defending held firm against a side that peppered them with 22 total shots. LAFC—owners of the best xGA (expected goals against) in MLS this season—blocked seven of the 16 shots the Sounders fired their way. Neither semifinalist conceded.
“Everything has been thought out,” said Atuesta. “If we have the ball we know how to read the moments of the game and also know how to suffer in moments when we have to suffer, and that is fundamental to win as we have been doing lately.” Along with captain Ilie Sánchez, Atuesta has locked down LAFC’s midfield without the third member of their central unit, Timmy Tillman, who according to Cherundolo is almost set to return following a lower body injury.
It was Tillman who said earlier this season, “We have enough good players on our squad that we can replace anyone.” He has been proven right. LAFC’s shift to a three-back structure, with only two true midfielders, came about largely because of Tillman’s absence. And now he’ll return to a rotation that is deeper than the one he left.
O’BRIEN DEBUTS
Giroud relieved Kamara in the 64th minute, jogging on with the newest member of the club in O’Brien, who came on for Sánchez. The young Englishman and the French legend helped close out the game in a manner that was more professional than fancy.
“Lewis was excellent,” said Cherundolo. “We just got his immigration work done in time for this match and he was traveling a lot yesterday, didn’t train with the group. But thankfully it was pushed through and was done in time for this game to be another option for us off the bench tonight. His energy, his work rate, his ball-winning and then his ability to calm the game down with his passing, his positioning and his ability to progress the ball forward was great. That’s exactly what we expected and we got it tonight. I’m happy for him. He was able to get a W in his debut, much like Olivier [Giroud] the other night.”
Added O’Brien, “The boys played fantastic in the first half, got the two-nil lead and then it made it quite easy for me to come on as a sub. It would have been nice to be at home for my first debut, for the fans to see how I play, but it was fantastic to come on here.
“We want to get through all the way to the final. To be in the semifinals now is fantastic. To play [Wednesday’s] game in front of our home crowd will be great.”
BUSY SUMMER
With a win over Colorado on Wednesday, LAFC would secure that all-important 2025 Concacaf bid, and of course a spot in the Leagues Cup final on August 25. Three days after that final, LAFC will return to Washington State (on August 28) to face the Sounders in the U.S. Open Cup Semifinals. A win in that match would see the Black & Gold earn the opportunity to hoist another trophy in front of its fans as the host of the Open Cup Final at the end of September.
The high-stakes rematch in Seattle was in the back of Cherundolo’s mind before he flew home Saturday night. “Getting up on the scoreline against Seattle is imperative for us,” he reiterated. “We’re very focused on the beginning of games in order to do that, and we’ll try again in 10 days.”
LAFC’s newly congested calendar has caused the rescheduling of its MLS regular-season match against Vancouver, from August 24 to October 13.
