Los Angeles FC Scouting Report, Everything to Play for, Even More for the Hype

This somehow relates to Consumer Cellular. Yay!

The lazy shits that run The Mothership no longer post live links in the Form Guide. Getting up to speed on work-arounds played a pretty big role in the shift in content. The MLS app is weird and I’m bitter, strongly thinking of complaining to AARP and Consumer Cellular to see what they can do about it. At any rate, on with the show, this is literally it.

Los Angeles FC
4-4-0, 12 pts., 10 gf, 11 ga (-1); home 3-1-0, away 1-3-0)
Last (why not?) Six Results: LLWLLW
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ SEA (2-5 L); v ATX (0-1 L); @ SKC (2-0 W); v SD (2-3 L); @ HOU (0-1 L); v SJ (2-1 W)

Really trying to tighten up these posts and in several ways. Doing this live and from the top, we’ll see how it goes…

The (Not So) Brief (about as well as expected)
Between fixture congestion and players coming in and out of the lineup (likely due to fixture congestion), LAFC hasn’t started so good - so maybe they don’t mind Miami shoving them out of the CCC. They kicked off 2025 with a couple stingy home wins (versus Minnesota, then NYCFC) before playing four of the next five on the road. They picked up three points across those four road games, all in a comfortable win at a, frankly shitty, Sporting KC team (who, fwiw, looked just as hapless, yet better than they did hosting the Timbers); they also gave a marginally-less shitty Houston team its lone win of 2025. Seattle kicked the shit out of ‘em, but LAFC had some positives to take out of the San Diego loss, despite going down a player around the 60th; they created good chances after Igor Jesus checked himself out. Not a lot to love about road life for this team…

Up until last week, Steve Cherundolo loved his 4-3-3 – a line up that suits them, in my mind, and best represented (in my mind) by the lineup at San Diego – and mostly tinkered with it. Timbers fans will see a lot of familiar faces – e.g., Hugo Lloris in goal; shifting pairs at center back around Aaron Long and Eddie Segura; Ryan Hollingshead running up and down the left; Tim Tillman and Mark Delgado in midfield and…probably Denis Bouanga? – and have some sense of what they do. New faces include former Dallas defender, Nkosi Tafari (eh), Jesus at somewhere between a No. 6 and a No. 8 (also, eh), and a pair of promising young ‘uns around the wings in Nathan Ordaz and David Martinez. Despite having a couple starts up top, Olivier Giroud already looks like an after-thought (good comedy after the in-house propaganda (aka, the Onside series) fluffed his arrival), and it’s hard to know how much game they’ll get out of new left back Artem Smolyakov, but he scored an elegant goal at San Diego.

Speaking of scoring, not this LAFC team’s long suit – at least not yet. If you take the snoozer at Houston out of the sample (started a rotated XI too), they’ve hung around a modest 11+ shots per game, but still get their share of good, clear looks. That has produced more xG than goals so far: I’ve already crapped on Giroud (no jinx, no jinx, no jinx, p-too, p-too, p-too!), but Bouanga scored his first regular season goal just last weekend (and, factually, teed up the first) and them not showing all the way necessitates scoring by committee. The collective defense gets closer to 2.0 allowed per game than 1.0, but that 2-5 loss at Seattle skewed the data in a way that feels relevant.

Find Peter Vermes in here, go to Heaven.

With both Houston and San Diego playing a ball-dominant style, I put most of my time into the March 22 road game at SKC and last weekend’s 2-1 home over San Jose. San Jose has fallen off a strong start and SKC has played poorly enough to break that Sixth Seal (aka, getting Peter Vermes canned, also something about Whore of Babylon) and that meant catching LAFC’s better moments, but something about that made sense. If I had to recommend one over the other in educational terms, I’d go with the San Jose game – a choice mostly based on the ‘Quakes playing through LAFC in a way I believe Portland can replicate. San Jose also made Timbers-esque mistakes, which helped me feel all the way at home. Overall, though, I saw a team that generally defended behind the center-stripe: they didn’t chase much, relying instead on a good shape and a kind of right-place/right-time good fortune; moreover, they rotated very smoothly to cover when any of their players do step to the ball and in response to how the opposition moves them around. The attack gets on its horse pretty damn quick and it generally involves getting one of their several quality runners isolated into space; LAFC doesn’t have the most elegant midfield, but it can hit that pass all day. That doesn’t mean they stay wide either; they operate just fine in central spaces and have the quality to compress a defense. Broadly speaking, it’s counter/transition when they can make it work, then, failing that, compressing the field and creating the best possible chance with the fewest possible passes.

Five Takeaways (from the above, and what I know about the Timbers)
1) Mind the Starting XI
If Bouanga starts – and odds are he’ll get close to back to his best someday soon…hopefully, not this week - but Portland knows what to expect from him regardless, e.g., don’t double-team him, but do keep a second defender close when he gets isolated wide left. Whatever Ordaz and Martinez lack in elegance and experience they make up for in speed. By all that’s holy, don’t let them run free behind, that’s obvious, but expect a footrace between them and Portland’s fullbacks for as long as they’re out there. Keeping them off the board should limit Giroud…assuming he starts. (How’s the hip, monsieur?)

2) Don’t Press, Reset
In the video I watched, LAFC excelled at going from turnover to positive possession in 2-3 passes. Even if Phil Neville opts to press them – and I expect him to – I hope he also directs them to fall off and get organized immediately after every turnover. LAFC will almost certainly get those 11+ chances at Portland and the Timbers should feel free to start/resume chasing once they get set, but I can’t think of a surer way to piss away points than giving them an easy opening after the second or third player in their transition sequence gets on the ball.

3) Contesting Portland’s Right/LAFC Left?
Should the Timbers even try it, even if just to keep LAFC’s left a home? If Neville, et al, see no viable path up their left? Sure. I get the feeling Jonathan Rodriguez isn’t all the way ready to go, but LAFC’s personnel already recommends against starting him. Starting Antony makes more sense, particularly if you cheat David Da Costa that way too. Gods willing, they can cheat Felipe Mora to the weak side and push Santiago Moreno higher to get behind LAFC’s left if/when it over-commits.

4) A Midfield Détente
I don’t have any clear, messianic visions for who Neville starts in central midfield, never mind what he should tell them to do – at least not outside prioritizing shutting off easy outlets any time LAFC gets on the ball after a turnover. They play without a true No. 10, but Delgado and Tillman are strong two-way midfielders, and probably a little stronger going forward than they are defending (my theory as to why the compact when they defend). So, I guess that boils down to the Timbers managing it at the beginning and seeing if they can find an advantage from there. I expect a lot of traffic to go up and down the wide spaces in this one.

5) The Greatest Threat?
I saw LAFC set up at least a half dozen chances that ran straight up the gut, but I saw them score a fair number of goals on recycled balls - and a fair number of those came from range (see, Smolyakov), or thereabouts, or less so. Either way, the Timbers need to stay on top of rebounds and second shots on goal - and not just because LAFC have players who can strike a hard shot through traffic. Follow those bounces, boys! 

And…shit. Went on longer than I wanted. I’ve been teasing a plan for future posts on Bluesky all week and, yes, Scouting Reports are back in the mix – if only for the Timbers. That’s it for this one. I’ll be back on Sunday to kick around what happens between Portland and LAFC. And, ideally, The Plan will kick into place from there. Till then…