LOS ANGELES — The penalty kick shootout giveth and it taketh away.
On Tuesday night, 12 rounds of PKs against Mazatlan went against the Los Angeles Football Club in its Leagues Cup opener.
On Friday night, at the end of a wild 90 minutes in which both teams finished with 10 players, LAFC needed four tries to find redemption, beating Pachuca 4-2 on penalties following a second straight 1-1 result.
Goalkeeper Thomas Hasal made two diving saves to his left, denying Javier Lopez and Alan Bautista. Denis Bouanga, Mark Delgado, Sergi Palencia and Eddie Segura all converted for LAFC.
With one points-based contest remaining on Tuesday against Tigres, LAFC seems unlikely to advance in a competition that will send the top four teams from MLS and the top four from Liga MX to the quarterfinals.
Giving everything it could against Pachuca, LAFC looked for an advantage from the opening whistle, finding space and joy against the Mexican side through most of the first half hour.
Ten minutes in, Pachuca goalkeeper Carlos Moreno made things very difficult on his defenders while attempting a pass inside his half down middle of the field.
Intercepted by Delgado, the veteran LAFC midfielder quickly pushed the ball forward to Nathan Ordaz, who recognized Bouanga was well positioned to his left.
The French winger placed his go-ahead shot between Moreno and the near post for his 13th career Leagues Cup goal, the most in tournament history.
LAFC continued to press Pachuca until Ordaz was sent off for cheap-shotting defender Sergio Barreto with a short elbow to the stomach. In real time it did not look like much and no foul was called, but when Guatemalan referee Bryan López went to check the play on video review it was deemed a straight red card.
For Ordaz, a 21-year-old native of Van Nuys who has taken big strides in his on-field performances in 2025, the scene was reminiscent of an incident on April 2 during the first leg of a CONCACAF quarterfinal against Inter Miami.
That night, Ordaz received a yellow card for a hard foul on Maxi Falcon that included a raised arm and contact to the head. A video review did not yield a red, drawing criticism from Miami head coach Javier Mascherno, who said the circumstances warranted one “here, in China and on the moon.”
With Ordaz unable to stay on the field this time, Pachuca did not waste its first opportunity to punish a short-handed LAFC.
After a whiffed clearance in the box by Delgado, the ball found Pachuca midfielder Elias Montiel outside the 18-yard box. His left-footed shot deflected through a defender’s legs and there was little Hasal could do to deny the equalizer.
Starting in place of Hugo Lloris, who is expected to miss all three of the Leagues Cup Phase One matches as he sorts through the process of obtaining a green card, Hasal kept the game level with a high, diving save on Montiel in the 56th minute.
For much of the second half, though, LAFC played as if its life depended on earning three points. Despite being a man down, the Black & Gold put Pachuca, a fellow 2025 Club World Cup participant, on the defensive.
In the 74th minute alone, LAFC forced Pachuca to scramble deep inside its box as Moreno came up big with three tough saves.
A rare chance for Pachuca nearly produced an acrobatic twisting bicycle kick in the 79th minute. But as Venezuelan center forward Jhonder Cadiz went for broke, he kicked defender Nkosi Tafari square in the head.
Once again López did not call a foul on the field, and once again after going to VAR he showed a red card to Cadiz.
An entertaining and a wide-open finish in front of an announced crowd of 14,773 ultimately concluded with LAFC’s second penalty shootout in as many matches – this time taking two points instead of one.
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