A smaller crowd on hand consisting of roughly 90% El Salvador fans, took in a post 4th of July game at BMO. This is a rare international friendly tune up for LAF. As the World Cup enters critical knockout stage matchups, MLS is less than 2 weeks away from resuming the season.
LAFC rolls out a starting lineup featuring majority regular starters, aside from Son Heung-Min, who is taking a break before rejoining the team, post World Cup. The key talking point for this game is El Salvadoran an LAFC key man, who comes from Salvadoran, Nathan Ordaz. You’d imagine the talking point being Ordaz suiting up for LAFC or El Salvador (his international club), but news is that Ordaz isn’t listed in either lineup for today’s game. There should be more news on this in the coming hours and days.
LAFC are going for it from the start. It only took 5 minutes for Mark Delgado to find the back of the net with a drive from the top of the box to the back corner of the net. Easy, cool and precise. Mark has been a crucial and underrated player for this LAFC team since her arrived from across town.
El Salvador turned it up after the initial slow start, with large part due to the vocal fan support. This sounds and feels like an away game for LAFC, something you will rarely hear at BMO Stadium.
In the 40th minute, LAFC had a chance to go up 2-0, but Jeremy Ebobisse missed a on-one-one with the Salvadoran goalie, who made the save. El Salvador tried to capitalize minutes later, right before halftime, where a Salvadoran found himself deep in the LA box, and slid to get a hit on a ball, but Hugo Lloris was right there to corral it for a save.
Moments after, Denis Bouanga gets to the corner of El Salvador’s side of the field and crosses a ball into the box where Ebobisse gets a cleat on it and guides it to the back of the net. LAFC take a 2-0 lead on the last play of the half.
LAFC in full control of the game at halftime. The second half should see a mass influx of subs for LA. Valuable playing time for some of the younger guys like Amin Boudri to get in the game and show what they got, while keeping the starters healthy.
Start of the second half was more LAFC in the attack. Initially it looked liked LAFC put a third goal in, but it was called offsides. That didn’t stop them from adding more. This time courtesy of Ryan Hollingshead who gets LA their third goal of the match in the 60th minute. It’s 3-0 LAFC in a rout.
After the goal, LA cleared the benches and swapped in the remaining starters for the last half hour of action. LA maintained control and possession. This was the type of game and performance coach Marc Dos Santos must have been hoping for from his squad.
In the final minutes before stoppage time, El Salvador almost got on the board. A baby bicycle kick from El Salvador gave momentary excitement to the exasperated Salvadoran crowd, they gasped and groaned as the shot went wide of the far post.
The final whistle blew and LAFC gets the job done with a professional performance and comfortable 3-0 win.
Good warm-up match for LAFC to ramp up before the MLS competition resumes in two weeks. LAFC jumping right into things with an El Trafico showdown against the LA Galaxy. High stakes from the get-go.
This LAFC team is certainly expected to do some business. The MLS transfer window opens on July 13 and LAFC gonna make some moves, whether that’s additions and/or subtractions. John Thorrington is known as a GM who doesn’t sit back and loves making a big splash, I expect him to have something significant up his sleeve.
Up Next:
LAFC returns to regular season play on Friday, July 17 against the LA Galaxy. The El Trafico kicks off from Dignity Health Sports Park at 7:45 p.m. PT and will be broadcast on Apple TV, FOX and FOX Deportes.