Discounting the three own-goals they received through 27 MLS regular-season matches this year, the Los Angeles Football Club has hit paydirt 40 times.
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Visiting FC Dallas on Saturday for a fifth road game in 29 days, LAFC, middle of the pack among MLS teams in scoring under head coach Marc Dos Santos, must score without the players responsible for doing that most often.
Eight of the 13 names on the LAFC roster with at least one goal in 2026 cannot be called on in a crucial Western Conference showdown against fourth-place Dallas (12-6-8, 44 points) on Saturday night at Toyota Stadium.
A few of them are no longer options following a confluence of outbound transfers and expired loans. Add injuries and six international call-ups during a 16-day FIFA window that began on Monday and LAFC (11-8-8, 41 points) will step on the field with a statistically anemic attack.
The quintet who scored and should be in uniform a half hour north of Dallas includes Mark Delgado (2), Tyler Boyd (1), Armindo Sieb (1), Sergi Palencia (1) and Ryan Hollingshead (1).
Since none of them are Denis Bouanga (14) or Son Heung-min (6), who combined for half of the team total, Dos Santos hopes that what he saw in practice from the players available to him this week can translate into a successful final stop on a tough stretch of matches away from L.A.
LAFC is winless on the road in league play (0-2-4) since beating the Galaxy on July 17, and 3-5-6 away from BMO Stadium in the regular season.
Despite an 8-4-3 record in all competitions against Dallas, LAFC is 1-4-2 on the road in Frisco, where it last won in 2021 and nabbed a 1-1 draw last season on Sonny’s MLS Goal of the Year. Dallas is 5-2-5 at home in 2026.
When Bouanga and Son share the lineup this year, as they usually do, goals can still feel like rare commodities, especially since the start of August. Following last weekend’s 2-2 tie against San Jose at Levi’s Stadium, when both players scored in a heart-filled 10-man effort that was spoiled in the final moment, LAFC has notched eight goals in its last nine MLS games.
As Son scored for South Korea and Bouanga played 90 minutes in Gabon’s 2-0 loss at Morocco this week, their remaining teammates trained ahead of what is the club’s last match until Oct. 10.
Midfielder Jude Terry and his two goals were off with the U.S. U-21 men’s national team.
Finnish attacker Leo Walta, who suited up against San Jose but did not make his first appearance for LAFC, is in Europe.
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Mathieu Choinière and forward Jacob Shaffelburg, goalless in his time with LAFC, rejoined the Canadian national team.
For the first time this year Dos Santos can’t call on Choinière. The midfielder is the only LAFC player to appear in each regular-season game to this point, including 19 starts, and has a pair of goals and five assists.
With Timothy Tillman still out because of a hamstring injury, Igor Jesus should play despite missing last weekend due to unspecified personal reasons.
Also for the first time this year, Dos Santos can use Ecuadorian midfielder Sergio Vásquez. The U22 Initiative summer signing arrived in L.A. last Friday, trained in full this week and said he is fit to play for approximately one hour.
“Since I got here, since that first training I felt really good,” Vásquez said.
The newcomer won’t debut against Dallas and share the pitch with center back and captain Aaron Long, who is serving a one-match ban for the straight red card that forced LAFC to play a man down for more than an hour against San Jose.
Considering all of that, a limited roster is not solely an LAFC problem this weekend.
For nearly every MLS team, the first international window since the FIFA World Cup will demand changes on the field.
“We’re in the same boat,” Dos Santos said.
Dallas has three players on international duty, plus starting Brazilian midfielder Ramiro is suspended due to yellow card accumulation.
Headlined in neon lights, Croatian center forward Petar Musa, who has scored 18 of the team’s 48 goals, two behind Lionel Messi in the Golden Boot chase, is the main man missing for Dallas.
Musa showed out during the World Cup and rejoined his countryman this week as “probably the best 9” in MLS, said LAFC center back Nkosi Tafari, a mainstay of Dallas lineups for four seasons before joining the Black & Gold in 2025.
Generally operating alongside Musa, 24-year-old American forward Logan Farrington (nine goals, five assists) should be the focal point of the Dallas attack.
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LAFC AT FC DALLAS
When: Saturday, 5:30 p.m. PT
Where: Toyota Stadium, Frisco, Texas
TV/Radio: Apple TV/710 AM, 980 AM, 1230 AM