What happened last weekend for the Los Angeles Football Club to lose, 3-1, to a historically bad MLS team?
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Sporting Kansas City hadn’t defeated LAFC in 11 meetings since 2021. SKC entered the contest as the lone MLS team without 20 points this season – and still is despite adding three times as many points to its total against LAFC as it had in its previous seven games combined. Hosting an opponent they lost to, 4-0, a couple of months ago, the Kansas City had the fewest goals in MLS and is on pace to smash the record for the most goals conceded in league history.
So how did LAFC lose?
“The problem is in the first half we stayed on the plane,” LAFC head coach Marc Dos Santos said after the match. “I think in the first half we were still in L.A., maybe. Very disappointing how we defended far from each other, passive. We didn’t win any duels in the first half and you know it was very clear from all of us that you don’t win games just looking at standings. You have to win them on the field.”
A match that looked ripe for the picking, and the players no-showed?
“I would say they wanted to win this game more than us, and obviously that’s not a great case because the big teams want to win every time and maybe we are not there yet,” said Ukrainian defender Yevhen Cheberko, who apologized unprompted for his pass that led to Sporting’s third goal, which put the lid on a comeback.
“If we want to be contenders – and our goal is to win the MLS and reach as far as possible – this is not good enough from everybody these types of games,” Cheberko said.
Whatever justification that could be offered to understand LAFC’s first 45 minutes – a third match in eight days while SKC did not compete midweek; integrating players returning from injury into the starting lineup; consistently falling short of converting chances, particularly on corner kicks and set plays; overconfidence; etc. – the result should have gone their way under any condition, stressed Chekberko, who called the performance “a bit shameful for us.”
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Last weekend’s defeat was the first for LAFC in five league games, but Dos Santos said it felt like they had lost all five. Falling from third to sixth in the Western Conference standings as a consequence, the outcome was exactly what LAFC could not afford while playing five of six games on the road over a period when coaches and players expected to learn a lot about their postseason possibilities.
The second-to-last away date on that challenging list comes Saturday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, where the San Jose Earthquakes (12-8-5, 41 points) will host LAFC (11-8-7, 40 points) instead of at PayPal Park for the fourth consecutive season.
Positioned fourth in the West after back-to-back wins, San Jose is looking for its first regular-season sweep of LAFC. Led by head coach Bruce Arena, the Earthquakes opened the year 9-1-0 before falling off a cliff and collecting just eight of 39 points until going unbeaten in their last four outings.
San Jose beat LAFC at the home of the San Francisco 49ers in 2023 (2-1) and 2024 (3-1). Last year, a hat trick from Denis Bouanga plus a goal by Son Heung-min sent LAFC home a 4-2 winner in front of a crowd of 50,978 that featured a strong contingent wearing black and gold. It was the first time in seven matches at the stadium that San Jose had lost.
“If we want to get back to winning and winning a big game because it’s a California kind of derby, I would call it, you need your fans, you need the support of them and that’s what the team needs right now,” Dos Santos said. “So I think at Levi’s Stadium we have that opportunity to get them behind us.”
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LAFC (11-8-7, 40 points) AT SAN JOSE (12-8-5, 41 points)
When: Saturday, 4:30 p.m.
Where: Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara
TV/Radio: Apple TV/710 AM, 980 AM, 1230 AM