LOS ANGELES — Call it the $9.55 million goal.
Or call it Denis Bouanga picking up the mantle that had been left behind by Carlos Vela, a torch unofficially being passed a few days after LAFC’s first icon officially retired, picked up by the team’s current star.
And perhaps Bouanga’s extra-time goal Saturday night, a blast that deflected off the leg of Club América’s Miguel Vazquez and past goalkeeper Luis Malagon in the 115th minute of play, should go down as the most important goal to date in the history of the eight-year-old club. Yes, maybe even more important than Gareth Bale’s tying goal in extra time of the 2022 MLS Cup final, which set up a shootout that produced the club’s first league title.
There are now three, to date, massive victories atop a history that has been remarkably consistent since the club’s first game in 2018, including two Supporters’ Shields for best regular season record.
There is the 2022 MLS Cup victory over Philadelphia, the 3-1 victory over Sporting Kansas City last September to win the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, and Sunday’s 2-1 victory over one of Mexico’s most famous and successful clubs that put LAFC into the 32-team field for the FIFA Club World Cup. That not only overcame what had been a stumbling block, following losses in CONCACAF Champions League finals to Tigres in 2020 and León in 2023, but it put LAFC in there with the big boys.
As in, globally big.
No, coach Steve Cherundolo isn’t obsessing yet about Chelsea, the first Club World Cup opponent June 16 in Atlanta. (And yes, FIFA, I know the schedule has been set, but wouldn’t it make sense – and dollars as well – to shift at least one of LAFC’s pool play games to the Rose Bowl?)
First things first.
“Our next opponent is Kansas City (June 8), so that’s where my head is,” Cherundolo said. “I haven’t really thought about the Club World Cup and our opponents … We will be prepared, as prepared as we possibly can be. And we will come up with a plan that can work. But I don’t think there’s any secret in this room to say, for us to beat those teams, we need to play perfectly. We needed to play near perfectly tonight. We didn’t, but I think we played pretty close and that’s why we won.”
But there is a much larger picture here, one that not only affects LAFC but Major League Soccer as a whole. Cherundolo has talked about it before: The economic imbalance between teams in other countries and other leagues that can spend freely and those in MLS who are restricted by not only a tightly wound salary cap but by arcane salary mechanisms and categories of spending that restrict what a team can do to improve itself from year to year, or limit a club’s ability to create roster depth to complement its designated players.
“Everybody in this room knows or is familiar with the best example of being a successful team, winning and then trying to turn around the next season, down the street in this city,” he said, speaking of the difficulties experienced by the Galaxy a season after winning the championship. “That’s really hard to do.
“But I think you can see LAFC’s success over the past four years now has been very consistent, although we have had less tools to work with. And part of the decision making is letting players like Ilie Sanchez go, but being very good at being prepared for what else is out there … with your roster building, your scouting management, your negotiating but also then essentially then your coaching staff getting players on board, and trying to find players that fit our model, but also tweaking the model a little bit to fit players.”
It would be one thing for a team to deal with MLS’ restrictions if everyone else it plays against operates under the same rules. Given that MLS teams face Liga MX clubs and other teams from the CONCACAF region that have no such restrictions, it’s like operating with one hand tied behind your back. You can succeed for a time, but eventually it catches up with you.
“We are, I think, maximizing the dollars we get to spend,” Cherundolo said. “We maximize and stretch every single dollar to try to compete with the best in our region, and now to compete with the best in the world.
“But – it is not always going to work like that. You do need to stay competitive financially as well. You can look at the EPL. If you look at the European leagues, it’s no secret why they are the best teams in the world. And so there is an element where we cannot just close our eyes and say, oh, now we’re there, and let’s stop investing. It needs to be continued to push forward financially.”
Consider that the coach made many of those same observations after the 2023 home and home with León in the CONCACAF Champions Cup final, in which LAFC lost the first leg 1-0 in Mexico and the second leg 2-1 at home. The irony, of course, is that Sunday’s play-in match took place after León was bounced from the Club World Cup because of a violation of ownership rules. The same group also owns Pachuca, which also had qualified.
This was a hurry-up call. Leon and Pachuca appealed the ruling, which was made in March, and the decision to reject their appeal wasn’t finalized by the Court of Arbitration for Sport until May 6. The LAFC-Club América play-in wasn’t officially announced until May 16.
“We felt like because León was the team that is no longer part of it, and we were the runners up in the Champions League, that we should get that spot or at least the opportunity to fight for that spot, right?” defender Aaron Long said. “So we’re super happy that they gave us the opportunity to play a great team. And again, to come out on top is is amazing.”
So is this the biggest victory in LAFC history?
“I don’t know if it’s the most important, but it’s definitely it’s definitely one of them,” Long said. “Probably top three. The MLS Cup is probably up there as well. But yeah, I mean to represent this club on a global stage, and for our ownership that has poured so much into this club and our staff and our general manager (John Thorrington) and how much they put into the club year after year and fight for trophies, fight for titles, to now represent us on the world stage is unbelievable.
“And it’s all that we wanted.”
jalexander@scng.com
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