AUSTIN, Texas — Denis Bouanga had two goals and an assist on Sunday night to help LAFC beat Austin FC 4-1 and sweep the best-of-three series in the first round of the MLS Cup playoffs.
LAFC, which won Game 1 2-1, plays at second-seeded Vancouver in the one-game Western Conference semifinals.
Son Heung-min added a goal and an assist for No. 3 seed LAFC. Jeremy Ebobisse replaced Son in the 88th minute and capped the scoring in the third minute of stoppage time.
Son, on the counter-attack, hesitated to freeze defender Ilie Sánchez at the top of the area and then exploded toward the left end line and blasted a shot from the corner of the six-yard box inside the back post to open the scoring in the 21st. About four minutes later, Son fed Bouanga for a finish — the 30-year-old’s 100th goal across all competitions for LAFC — into a wide-open net to make it 2-0.
Bouanga cut inside to evade defender Brendan Hines-Ike — who fell to the ground — and then flicked a shot into the net from the left center of the area in the 44th minute.
Bouanga is the only active player — and is one of just nine in history — with at least 10 career goals in the MLS Cup playoffs.
LAFC’s Hugo Lloris — who was second in MLS with 12 shutouts in the regular season — had three saves, including a diving stop on a penalty kick by Myrto Uzuni in the 39th minute after a hand ball in the area by Bouanga.
Ryan Porteous was shown a yellow card for a foul in the area and Dani Pereira converted from the spot in the sixth minute of stoppage time to make it 3-1 at halftime.
CJ Fodrey appeared to have cut sixth-seeded Austin’s deficit to 3-2 in the 71st minute but an offsides call nullified the would-be goal.
LAFC plays at Austin on Sunday for a chance to advance to the Western Conference semifinals.
LAFC took a 1-0 lead in the 20th minute on Brendan Hines-Ike’s own goal. Ryan Hollingshead beat his defender in the box for a cross in front of goal that was deflected in by Hines-Ike.
Jon Gallagher tied it at 1-all in the 63rd for Austin. A loose ball in front of net fell to the feet of Myrto Uzuni, who poked it to Owen Wolff for a feed to a wide-open Gallagher at the back post.
Son Heung-Min started the game-winning sequence with a long run to get into the area and draw defenders for a pass to Denis Bouanga, whose shot took a deflection to Ordaz at the back post.
Austin won the two regular-season meetings with LAFC this year by a 1-0 scoreline — both goals coming on headers off corner kicks.
AUSTIN, Texas — Owen Wolff scored in a goal in the 83rd minute, Brad Stuver had two saves, and Austin FC beat LAFC 1-0 on Sunday night to snap LAFC’s six-game win streak.
LAFC (17-8-8) has 59 points, one behind second-place San Diego and one ahead of Minnesota in the Western Conference. Vancouver has 63 points.
Austin (13-12-8) has 47 points and will be the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference for the MLS Cup playoffs, which begin Oct. 22.
Wolff’s goal ended LAFC’s shutout streak at 429 minutes, dating to Sept. 21 against Salt Lake.
Zan Kolmanic played a corner kick into the area that deflected off the head of LAFC’s Eddie Segura before Wolff headed home the finish inside the back post.
Denis Bouanga and Son Heung-min did not play (international duty) for LAFC. Bouanga is second in MLS with 24 goals this season and Son has eight goals and three assists in eight starts since signing with LAFC on Aug. 6.
The match had been scheduled for July 5, but was rescheduled due to severe weather and flooding in the area.
Denis Bouanga scored in his sixth consecutive match Sunday night, connecting in the 86th minute to send LAFC past Atlanta United 1-0 for its fifth consecutive victory.
Late in a frustrating evening for LAFC stars Son Heung-min and Bouanga, the French star pounced when a long cross into the box deflected to him off the head of Atlanta’s Enea Mihaj. In his 100th MLS match, Bouanga hammered home his 99th goal for LAFC.
LAFC has been turbocharged by Son’s arrival, losing just once in all competitions since July 25 while streaking up the standings and becoming the Western Conference’s highest-scoring team.
Bouanga and Son have scored LAFC’s last 18 goals, an MLS record, while combining to score 19 total goals in their nine matches together.
Son’s four-match goal-scoring streak was ended by 14th-place Atlanta’s cautious game plan, which included a five-man back line with 10 men frequently behind the ball. Atlanta attempted just three shots and nearly disappointed a packed stadium eager to watch exciting soccer, with a particularly huge turnout of Son fans during Korea’s Chuseok mid-autumn holiday.
LAFC is fourth in the Western Conference after this victory, but with two games in hand on first-place San Diego and third-place Minnesota.
LAFC nearly broke through in the 57th minute, but Atlanta goalkeeper Jayden Hibbert saved Mark Delgado’s point-blank shot with his trailing hand. Son then got a corner to an unmarked Ryan Hollingshead in the 64th minute, but the LAFC defender barely missed the net.
Atlanta got a rare chance in the 70th minute, but Bartosz Slisz hit the post.
Son and Bouanga are both headed off for international duty this week, and they’ll be absent when LAFC hosts Toronto on Wednesday. LAFC must make up postponed matches after earning a spot in the FIFA Club World Cup.
Denis Bouanga scored three goals, his second hat trick in the last three games, and LAFC beat Real Salt Lake 4-1 on Sunday night at BMO Stadium.
Bouanga, who has scored in four consecutive games, has 22 goals this season, tied with Lionel Messi for the most in MLS. Bouanga had 20 goals in each of the last two seasons and is the first player in MLS history with at least 20 goals in three consecutive seasons.
The 30-year-old Bouanga, who also had three goals in a 4-2 win over San José on Sept. 13, has a club-record four career hat tricks in the regular season, one more than Carlos Vela.
Son Heung-min added a goal and two assists for LAFC (14-7-8).
LAFC, which clinched a playoff spot when St. Louis beat San José 3-1 on Saturday, has 50 points and is fourth in the Western Conference. Third-place Minnesota has 54 points and Seattle is fifth with 45.
Son, who had his first MLS hat trick in LAFC’s 4-1 win over Salt Lake on the road Wednesday, has seven goals in the past three games.
Salt Lake (10-16-4) has lost five of six.
Bouanga scored in the first minute of first-half stoppage time and Son bounced a shot from outside the area off the near post and into the net a couple minutes later to give LAFC a 2-1 lead at halftime.
Bouanga added goals in the 73rd and 87th minutes.
Brayan Vera scored his first goal of the season in the 14th minute on a left-foot shot from well outside the area that slipped under the crossbar and inside the back post to give Salt Lake a 1-0 lead.
Salt Lake (10-15-4) has lost four of its last five matches.
Son, who joined LAFC (13-7-8) a month ago from the English Premier League, scored on a breakaway in the third minute for a 1-0 lead. He was left wide open in the middle of the field in the 16th and scored from distance to make it 2-0.
Son ran with Denis Bouanga from midfield on a 2-on-1 breakaway and scored an easy tap-in for a 3-1 advantage. Bouanga scored six minutes later on another breakaway to break a tie with league legend Carlos Vela for the most goals in club history with 94.
RSL missed a penalty kick in the 45th when Rwan Cruz’s attempt hit off the right post and went across the goal line to goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who had gone the other way.
SANTA CLARA — Denis Bouanga finished with a hat trick after Son Heung-min scored in the first minute and LAFC beat the San José Earthquakes 4-2 on Saturday night at Levi Stadium.
Son gave LAFC (12-7-8) the lead when he used passes from rookie Artem Smolyakov and Mark Delgado to score 54 seconds into the match. It was Son’s second goal in five matches since transferring from Tottenham Hotspur. He ties for the third fastest goal in club history. Smolyakov’s assist was his first in his 19th appearance and Delgado’s was his career-high eighth.
Bouanga took over from there — scoring in the ninth, 12th and 87th minutes for his third career three-goal effort in regular-season play. Bouanga, who won the Golden Boot Award in 2023, has 18 goals on the season — three behind league leader Sam Surridge of Nashville SC.
Preston Judd scored in the 18th minute for the Earthquakes, whose final tally came on an own goal by LAFC defender Sergi Palencia in the 90th minute. Judd’s netter was his career-best seventh. Palencia had assists on two of Bouanga’s goals.
Hugo Lloris saved three shots for LAFC (12-7-8).
Daniel De Sousa Britto totaled two saves for the Earthquakes (9-13-8).
LAFC pulls one point behind the fourth-place Seattle Sounders in the Western Conference with the top four seeds earning home-field advantage in the best-of-three first round.
LAFC travels to play Real Salt Lake on Wednesday. The Earthquakes host St. Louis City on Saturday.
After Dreyer got the tiebreaking goal in the 66th minute, Western Conference-leading San Diego held on against a barrage of LAFC chances to extend its unbeaten streak to six matches in MLS play.
Denis Bouanga scored in the first half for LAFC, but the French star and Son both failed to convert golden scoring chances in the final minutes of expansion San Diego’s first trip 120 miles north to BMO Stadium. CJ Dos Santos made three saves for the visitors, including a diving stop on Son in second-half injury time.
Son was given a hero’s welcome in his first match in Los Angeles, taking the field nearly four weeks after LAFC announced the landmark signing of the South Korean star following his decade at Tottenham. Son played his first three matches on the road for LAFC, scoring a goal and immediately energizing the offense while his new club went unbeaten.
The sellout crowd serenaded Son from the moment he stepped on the field for warmups in Los Angeles, which has the world’s largest Korean population outside Korea. With thousands of fans wearing his jerseys for club and country, Son repeatedly waved to those cheering him on, and he exhorted the crowd into a frenzy right before kickoff.
Bouanga put LAFC ahead in the 15th minute with a beautiful chip volley into San Diego’s net off an excellent pass from teenager David Martínez. Bouanga’s goal was his 15th of the season, all in his last 19 matches.
But Lozano answered in the 33rd minute with a strike from the middle of the box for his ninth MLS goal. The Mexican national team star celebrated by taunting the famously raucous North End supporters’ section.
Dreyer put San Diego ahead with an individual effort by the Danish star, slipping behind LAFC’s back line to collect Jeppe Tverskov’s pass and juking two defenders before firing a left-footed shot for his 14th goal.
LAFC controlled play for long stretches, but couldn’t even it.
Son hit a screamer toward the far top corner in the 45th minute, but Dos Santos made a superb leaping save.
Hugo Lloris’ long pass put Son in a one-on-one break in the 74th minute, but he couldn’t get a shot off.
Son then hit the post in the 78th minute with a shot from the top of the box.
Bouanga got alone on the keeper in the 82nd minute, but waited too long to take a shot.
Son’s hard shot in the 92nd minute was saved by a diving Dos Santos.
BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. — Denis Bouanga scored on a penalty kick in the 81st minute to rally LAFC to a 2-2 draw with the Chicago Fire at SeatGeek Stadium on Saturday night.
Bouanga notched his 14th goal of the season for LAFC (10-6-7) after subbing in for Mathieu Choinière in the 61st minute. The PK was awarded after Son Heung-min — in his debut with the club — was fouled by defender Carlos Terán.
Chicago (10-9-6) grabbed a 1-0 lead in the 11th minute on Terán’s first goal this season. Philip Zinckernagel collected an assist on the score. Terán has one goal in five straight seasons.
LAFC pulled even in the 19th minute on a goal by defender Ryan Hollingshead — his second. Nineteen-year-old midfielder David Martínez picked up his first assist this season after notching two in 17 appearances last year.
The Fire took a 2-1 lead in the 70th minute on a goal by Jonathan Bamba — his fourth in his first season in the league. Zinckernagel snagged another assist — his 13th — and Brian Gutiérrez earned his second.
It was the first of three straight home matches in Bridgeview for the Fire whose home these days is Soldier Field. Chicago is 102-55-72 in regular-season play at SeatGeek.
Chris Brady saved four shots for Chicago.
Hugo Lloris totaled one save for LAFC.
Chicago began the day in possession of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference as it tries to make the postseason for the first time since 2017.
LAFC entered the day sixth in the Western Conference, but the club has at least two matches in hand on all five teams above it.
The rivalry between the old-school Galaxy and its upstart neighbor LAFC was once the best in MLS. The Galaxy traces its roots to the inception of the league while LAFC helped define its modern era, setting up a turf war so good, so competitive and so emotional, it had its own nickname.
Much of that drama had faded from El Tráfico in recent matches. But that changed Saturday when Maya Yoshida scored on the last touch of the game to give the Galaxy a 3-3 draw before a packed house of 22,301 at BMO Stadium.
And the teams didn’t limit their fight to the scoreboard. A tense shoving match broke out seconds into stoppage time, leading referee Guido Gonzalez Jr. to send off LAFC’s Eddie Segura with a red card while handing two yellow cards to the Galaxy and one to LAFC goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.
Galaxy and LAFC players get into a on-field scuffle during Saturday’s 3-3 draw at BMO Stadium.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
The most devastating punch, however, came from Yoshida, who was in the center of the shoving match. Minutes later his header off a cross from Mauricio Cuevas — his first goal and just his second shot on target of the season — capped a Galaxy comeback from a late 3-1 deficit.
The draw gave the Galaxy (3-14-7) points in five of their last seven games, the team’s best stretch of the season. LAFC (10-5-6) is unbeaten in four straight and has lost just once in 14 league games since April 5. But the two points it lost on Yoshida’s goal dropped it to fifth in the Western Conference standings.
Bouanga’s fifth goal in six games gave LAFC the early lead in the 26th minute and, significantly, it was the first goal in that span that didn’t come from the penalty spot. It also gave him a goal in his last six games against the Galaxy.
LAFC star Denis Bouanga celebrates after scoring in the first half against the Galaxy on Saturday.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
Dilrosun doubled the lead with his second MLS goal on a counterattack five minutes later.
Pec halved the deficit for the Galaxy on a penalty kick less than 10 minutes before the intermission. That goal, set up by a Ryan Hollingshead hand ball in the box, snapped a 375-minute scoreless streak for LAFC.
Bouanga extended the LAFC lead on another counterattack set up by a Galaxy mistake in the 67th minute. Afterward, as the teams walked back to the center circle, Pec and Galaxy defender Emiro Garces, who was out of position on the breakaway, engaged in a heated argument.
Pec calmed down enough to get his fifth goal of the season, on a cross from Marco Reus, to pull his team closer in the 79th minute. The Galaxy then appeared to tie the score just before stoppage time, but Lloris made a spectacular kick save on Christian Ramirez while lying on his back on the goal line.
That set the stage for Yoshida, however, with the Galaxy captain slipping in front of Nkosi Tafari to redirect a glancing header inside the far post, earning the Galaxy a league result at BMO Stadium for the first time since August 2021, a game that also ended in a 3-3 draw.
Denis Bouanga scored on a first-half penalty kick and Hugo Lloris made it stand up for his third straight clean sheet as LAFC edged Minnesota United 1-0 on Wednesday night.
Bouanga scored his 11th goal when he sent a right-footed shot past Dayne St. Clair in the 42nd minute. The PK was awarded after Jeremy Ebobisse was fouled by defender Nicolás Romero, who received a yellow card.
Lloris finished with three saves for his league-high-tying ninth clean sheet of the season for LAFC (10-5-5).
St. Clair entered with nine shutouts and totaled five saves for Minnesota United (11-5-7), which falls to 6-3-3 at home.
Minnesota United has just one home win over LAFC, which joined the league in 2018. That came in March of last season in the debut of Minnesota manager Eric Ramsay.
LAFC posted a 1-0 victory over Minnesota United at home in the season opener.
LAFC improves to 2-3-4 on the road. The club was coming off shutout wins at home over the Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas by a combined 5-0 score.
Denis Bouanga scored on a penalty kick and assisted on Nathan Ordaz’s goal as LAFC defeated FC Dallas 2-0 at BMO Stadium on Saturday night.
Hugo Lloris made one save as LAFC (9-5-5) recorded its second straight shutout and won for the second time in three games since it went winless during the Club World Cup.
LAFC put 10 shots on goal.
Ordaz took a pass from Bouanga in the penalty box, spun and booted a right-footed shot into the right side of the goal in the 31st minute.
Bouanga made it 2-0 when he converted into the right side in the 45th minute, after he was fouled by Shaq Moore.
LAFC captain and defender Aaron Long was carted off in the 76th minute for an apparent leg injury.
No club in MLS history played more games during a two-year span than the 103 LAFC played the past two seasons. It was an exhausting and unrelenting slog that saw the team play a game every five days.
Yet it may prove to be just a warm-up for what the team could face during the remainder of this season. Wednesday’s 3-0 win over the short-handed Colorado Rapids, which snapped a four-game winless streak in all competition, was LAFC’s 28th match in less than five months. If it makes long runs in both the Leagues Cup and MLS Cup playoffs, the team will play another 29 times this season, with seven of those matches coming in the next 26 days weeks.
It’s a tortuous schedule, especially in mid-summer. But it’s also an unavoidable one.
“This schedule is what it is. We cannot change that,” said coach Steve Cherundolo, who got goals Wednesday from Denis Bouanga, Nathan Ordaz and newcomer Javairo Dilrosun. “It’s important not to waste any moments; moments meaning games you can win, moments also meaning chances in each game. So it’s important to play as effective as possible.
“That is our objective.”
Another objective would be to call for help, or at least relief, which is something LAFC figures to do as well. Because while the schedule ahead looks daunting, the team appears to have ample resources to deal with it.
The departures of Olivier Giroud, who returned to France, and Cengiz Under, whose loan from Turkish club Fenerbahce expired, frees up two designated player spots and more than $2.6 million in salary heading into the summer transfer window, which opens in two weeks. And the $10 million LAFC will receive for making the FIFA Club World Cup gives general manager John Thorrington more money to fund a roster upgrade.
“I don’t think there’s been a transfer window that LAFC has not been active in,” Cherundolo said. “We are always trying to improve the team whenever possible. That is just part of who we are and how we do things.
“So I, of course, expect the exact same demeanor this window.”
Exactly what that would look like, Cherundolo said, was a question for Thorrington, who wasn’t taking any this week. But LAFC’s needs are as obvious as they are plentiful.
LAFC’s Nathan Ordaz (27) celebrates after scoring a goal against Colorado Rapids at BMO Stadium on Wednesday.
(Shaun Clark / Getty Images)
Bouanga and Ordaz, who scored the first two goals Wednesday, have combined for 13 of LAFC’s 33 goals this season and the departures of Giroud and Under make the offense even more top heavy. Keeping Dilrosun, a former Dutch international on a short-term loan from Mexico’s Club América, could help spread out the scoring but expect LAFC to look to add another attacker in the transfer window just the same
The loss of center back Marlon, whose contract expired nine days ago, has also created a hole, this one on the back line.
Time is critical because despite the win over Colorado, which went down a man in the sixth minute when left back Jackson Travis drew a red card for elbowing defender Sergi Palencia in the face, LAFC (8-5-5) is closer to the ninth and final playoff Western Conference playoff spot than it is to the top of the 15-team table. However the team’s congested schedule means it will play at least more two games than every other team in the conference the rest of the season, something that is both a blessing and a curse.
It’s a blessing because it gives the team two extra chances to make up ground against the teams ahead of them. But it’s a curse in that it means the team’s MLS schedule is the most challenging down the stretch.
“That’s what I like,” Bouanga, whose first-half penalty-kick goal was his ninth of the season 50th in his MLS career, said through a translator. “I like play, play, play. When we train too much it becomes tiring for me.”
The crowded calendar is mainly a result of LAFC’s participation in the Club World Cup, which forced MLS four games, including Wednesday’s match with Colorado, to be rescheduled while adding four non-league games to the schedule. Then there’s the upcoming Leagues Cup, which will force LAFC to play as least three more games and perhaps as many as six.
Ordaz, whose goal early in the second half came off the rebound of a Dilrosun shot, said its important not too look too far ahead.
“You just have to go one day at a time,” he said. “I think we’re all going to be important, the whole team. Everybody’s ready and we’re going to trust in everyone.”
His coach agreed.
“We need to take it step by step, meaning game by game,” Cherundolo said.
“When you’re winning games that’s a great time to have a congested schedule because things are flowing and going in the right direction. So it’s important to get us going, get the ball rolling in the right direction.”
LAFC has been heading in the opposite direction the last month, earning just a draw in four games in all competition and getting shut out three times. Wednesday’s win, however, was the team’s most one-sided since a 4-0 victory over Seattle in mid May. The team also got a big effort from goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who recorded his sixth clean sheet in 16 MLS games.
“There’s no replacement for wins, and more specifically three points in the position we’re in,” Cherundolo said. “So that was very important, regardless of how it happened.”
Denis Bouanga had a goal and two assists, Eddie Segura scored his first goal since 2020 and LAFC extended its MLS unbeaten streak to nine games with a 3-1 win over Sporting Kansas City on Sunday night at BMO Stadium.
Bouanga converted from the penalty spot in the 59th to give LAFC (7-4-5), which had 56% possession and outshot Kansas City 21-5, a 2-1 lead.
Dejan Joveljic scored a goal for the fourth consecutive game when he ran onto a through ball played ahead by Manu García, and scored from near the penalty spot to make it 1-0 in the 39th minute.
The 25-year-old Joveljic, who scored 15 goals and had six assists last season, is tied for third in MLS with 10 goals this season, including five in the past four games.
Segura slipped a header — off a corner kick played into the center of the area by Bouanga — inside the back post in first-half stoppage time to make it 1-1 at halftime.
Olivier Giroud capped the scoring in the third minute of stoppage time, the 38-year-old’s second consecutive game with a goal.
John Pulskamp had four saves for Kansas City (4-9-4).
Records aren’t supposed to matter in Derby matches. When you’re facing your most bitter rival, the past is just that — the past.
So it meant nothing that the defending MLS Cup champion entered Sunday’s El Tráfico winless in 13 matches while LAFC was unbeaten in six straight.
“That all becomes irrelevant,” LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo said. “Those games are kind of isolated on their own.”
Perhaps it was fitting, then, that LAFC and the Galaxy played to a 2-2 draw in front of a crowd of 23,083 at Dignity Health Sports Park.
The draw kept LAFC (6-4-4) unbeaten since April 5. For the Galaxy (0-10-4), the tie ended a five-game losing streak — their longest since 2020 — but it also extended their winless one to 14 matches, the worst start in franchise history and the worst ever for a reigning MLS champion.
With playmaker Riqui Puig, who hasn’t played since undergoing surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament last December, looking on, the Galaxy attacked from the start and were rewarded in the sixth minute when Reus knocked in the rebound of a Gabriel Pec shot that LAFC keeper Hugo Lloris had stopped. The goal was the second of the season for Reus and it marked just the third time in 14 MLS games that the Galaxy had scored first.
But the lead didn’t last long, with Bouanga tying the score by lining a right-footed shot from about 30 yards into the side netting at the far post in the 13th minute. The goal was Bouanga’s seventh in seven games and was one he celebrated with a trademark front flip.
Former Galaxy midfielder Mark Delgado, who got his team-leading fourth assist on the play, chose not to celebrate the goal against his old team.
LAFC went in front five minutes into the second half when a low through ball from Ryan Hollingshead split Galaxy center backs Maya Yoshida and Emiro Garces and found Ordaz cutting into the penalty area. After catching up to the ball, Ordaz used his first touch to lift a left-footed shot by Galaxy keeper John McCarthy for his third goal of the season and the second in three starts.
The Galaxy appeared to even the game on a brilliant counterattack goal from Pec in the 78th minute, but after a long video review referee Drew Fischer ruled Pec was offside.
The Galaxy refused to quit and were rewarded when Reus chipped in a free kick from just outside the box in the 87th minute, giving the Galaxy their first point in a month — a point McCarthy saved with a brilliant goal-line stop of Hollingshead’s back-heel try deep in stoppage time.
