Los Angeles FC Scouting Report, Hatred, Contempt & Gambling

Better at soccer, honestly...

I couldn’t get myself up for another deep dive into Los Angeles FC. Don't blame me. Blame the twits at Major League Soccer HQ, who forgot the adage about familiarity breeding contempt…

…related, LAFC fans have a lively persecution complex about everyone else in the league giving them short shrift and hating on them generally.

Some Basics
And…hey, it turns out I never actually previewed LAFC due to a mini-vacation earlier this month (#worth it), so may as well lay it all out. They currently sit on at 7th in MLS’s Western Conference on a 3-3-3 record, with a tight goal differential (+1), on the right side of average (11.3) for goals scored (15) and the wrong side of average for goals allowed (14). They boast a decent unbeaten record at home (3-0-2), which is all that matters for now because that’s where the Timbers will play them on Saturday (side note, they’re 0-3-1 on the road, which means Portland (or the ref that day, Rubiel Vazquez) gave them their first road point of 2024).

The Lineup
Head coach Steve Cherundolo lines them up in a 4-3-3 (like this one) as if he cannot do otherwise and the personnel remained stable through every game until last weekend’s draw v Red Bull New York when started Mateusz Bogusz over Eduard Atuesta in midfield for reasons I couldn’t sort out without getting into...lore, I guess. The back four typically features (left to right) Ryan Hollingshead, Aaron Long, (Timbers’ fans prime villain from the last match-up) Jesus Murillo, and Sergi Palencia. The usual midfield line-up has Tim Tillman and Atuesta on either side of famous car tire spokesman, Ilie Sanchez, while the front three has most often seen (again, left to right) Cristian Olivera, Bogusz and Denis Bouanga.

Another change in last week’s lineup: once and former New York City FC defender Maxime Chanot started in Murillo’s stead (I see something about a knock in Ye Olde Unreliable Availability Report) and, for what it’s worth, he looked something like incredible, dude can play, etc.

Getting Reacquainted with Los Angeles FC, aka, the Spoiled Rich Kid that Transferred to Your Public School Under Somewhat Mysterious Circumstances

Still mid-orgasm. Started in 2021.

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

With this post, this project arrives at the first team to play in MLS for less than a decade; Los Angeles FC has just six seasons behind them. It also gets to why, for all its shortcomings, the Joy Points Scale (methodology at the bottom of the post*) holds up all right. LAFC has enjoyed as much success as any team in the league over those six seasons. To do the math: they won one Supporters’ Shield, one MLS Cup, plus they made an unsuccessful trip to another Cup (the season just ended, in fact), and they made the playoffs in five seasons of six and, if memory serves, people and pundits read them as a bona fide contender for four of those playoff runs…

…also, what a bunch of assholes.

That’s good enough for them to rank eighth all-time on the janky little scale I concocted for this series – which gets to another truth about the American top-flight – i.e., that somewhere just shy of 20 teams have enjoyed either fleeting success or no success at all. LAFC, meanwhile, doesn’t have a history, not really, hence the temptation to roll Chivas USA into the mix and call it the history of LA's "other team." I dismissed that for the same reason I’m not counting the Miami Fusion as part of Inter Miami CF’s history. Just totally different animals in both cases.

Best Season(s)

A fucking no-brainer, obviously: they won the double in 2022 and capped off the Shield by winning what was arguably the best, wildest MLS Cup in league history (and pour one out for the Philadelphia Union for that loss). I’ve never experienced such a thing with any team I’ve followed in any sport, but imagine it feels like an orgasm after tantric sex.

Long-Term Tendencies

LAFC has a short, proud history of scoring tons of goals. Their 2019 team holds second-place for goals scored in a single season (at 72), but they’ve either been very over or very, very over the average for goals scored in, again, five of their six seasons. They even scored very over the average in the one season they missed the playoffs (2021), but even that’s a little weird given that they had a worse defensive record in MLS’s weirdest season, aka, 2020. Still, and not unlike the team as a whole, LAFC’s defenses have generally been good.

Clash of (What Passes for MLS’s Version of) Titans

Your vacation lives on! I thank you!

[The third and final game I watched this weekend pitted the then and current top two teams in MLS against one another, the Colorado Rapids v. FC Dallas.]

When it comes to parsing this year’s (semi-freakish) power match-up, it’s probably best/safest to break it down into discrete parts. There’s sort of a lot to unpack, and from multiple pieces of luggage. Even so, the balance of the chatter falls on the Rapids side of the ball – they’re the bigger transformation, after all – so I’ll end with them.

Oh, and the game ended 1-1. It really looked like the Rapids would hold on, but I guess that’s why Dallas is Dallas. Victor Ulloa cranking an equalizer from eastern freakin’ Colorado falls in line with things like Mauro Diaz’s passing and Fabian Castillo’s (or Michael Barrios’) dribbling.

Another reason why Dallas is Dallas? Chris Hedges and Walker Zimmerman. These are both good players, really good players. What sometimes gets lost with those two is just how young they are: 26 and 23, respectively. Barring a transfer (something I can see for Zimmerman before Hedges), that tandem has a long future together. In the here and now, though, having them back there buys your team time, maybe even an entire half, to scratch back into a game against a Colorado defense that gives up very, very little.