Winning in the MLS playoffs isn’t always about being the best team. It’s about being the hottest. And LAFC may be able to claim both descriptions after Friday’s 1-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps.
With Mateusz Bogusz scoring in the 62nd minute, LAFC won its best-of-three series with the Whitecaps to advance to the Western Conference semifinals for a third straight season.
The win also was the team’s seventh in eight games since mid-September and its fourth straight at BMO Stadium, where it has lost just once in four months.
That’s where LAFC, which has the second-best home record in MLS, will meet the Seattle Sounders in the next round. But a two-week playoff pause for the FIFA international break means that game won’t be played until the weekend of Nov. 23 and 24.
For the Whitecaps, Friday’s loss ended their most successful season in six years, one in which they captured their third straight Canadian Championship and won 13 regular-season games for the first time since 2018. They haven’t made it past the first round of the playoffs since 2017, though LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo said they gave his team all it could handle Friday.
“It’s a really difficult team to beat,” he said. “It’s not an easy matchup. They’re very well organized [and] have some good individual players who decide games. It’s a very well-rounded team.”
Both teams were playing on just four days of rest, a schedule made necessary when LAFC, which owns BMO Stadium, booked concerts by the South Korean boy band Seventeen for Saturday and Sunday.
(Los Temerarios, a Mexican grupera band, is scheduled to play at BMO on Dec. 7, the day of the MLS Cup final, which the team also could host. A club spokesman said late Friday the concert would be moved if there was a conflict.)
LAFC, bidding to become the first team since 2007 to reach the MLS Cup final three times in a row, never has finished a season short of the title game since Cherundolo took over as coach before the 2022 season. Needing a win to keep that streak alive, Cherundolo tweaked his lineup Friday, leaving striker Olivier Giroud on the bench and starting Bogusz in an effort to make his offense quicker and less predictable.
The change didn’t really click though, with LAFC failing to put a shot on goal in a scoreless first half. So Giroud came on in place of an injured Cristian Olivera to start the second and Cherundolo switched to a 4-3-3 formation. That moved Bogusz out to a wing and the attack started to show some life, winning six corners in the first 16 minutes.
“Guys adapted very well and felt comfortable,” Cherundolo said of the switch. “It wasn’t perfect but it was good enough and certainly showed us that we have a different gear.
“It also shows us we have some work to do.”
Still, LAFC didn’t test Vancouver keeper Yohei Takaoka until the last of those corners, with Takaoka reaching out to snag a header from Maxime Chanot for his first save in the 61st minute. Takaoka failed his next test a minute later when Bogusz raced onto a ball that was misplayed by the Whitecaps’ Ranko Veselinovic at the top of the box, rounded the defender, then slotted a left-footed shot into the lower right corner.
The goal was his 20th in all competitions.
“He’s a fantastic finisher. If you can’t finish plays, then you’re probably not going to score a lot of goals,” Cherundolo said of Bogusz, who will spend part of the next two weeks playing for Poland in a pair of Nations League matches.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” the confident Bogusz said of his season. “I’m happy with myself.
“I still have three games left so I hope I’m going to score more.”
Former LAFC defender Tristan Blackmon appeared to tie the score in the 74th minute, heading in a long free kick. But he was well offside on the play, allowing LAFC keeper Hugo Lloris to record his 13th shutout of the season, which ties him with Seattle’s Stefan Frei for the league lead.
“We had a very good regular season, you know,” Bogusz said. “But the serious games start now. The job is not done.”
