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.

Los Angeles FC 3-2 Portland Timbers: A Long Journey to Nowhere and No Points

Up next, an endless lecture on wormholes...

Well, if that game didn’t barf up talking points like a frat boy sailing three sheets into the wind…

The answer to the question where to begin starts at the end of the first half with the Portland Timbers crawling into an 0-2 hole right ahead of the whistle. The entire half had…more or less sucked, but the Timbers had held on to where the optimistic sort could see them keeping things goal-less and having time to reorganize – particularly on the right side of defense where Juan David Mosquera faced acres of space to manage and a rampant Denis Bouanga to contain. Very much related, Los Angeles FC scored its first goal on the dozenth-plus time Bouanga got loose over there and cut a lethal ball across the area that slid well beyond the tips of Maxime Crepeau’s otherwise excellent fingers. When Portland’s Kamal Miller slid to meet it, he hedged the angle a couple dozen degrees inside and that put LAFC 1-0 up.

There’s nothing to do after that, of course, but to have all concerned dust themselves off, clear their heads and limit any further damage. Yeah, no, that didn’t happen. And I’m going to make a point here that will no doubt get me down-voted to oblivion on Reddit, but I’ll die on this hill: on the one hand, nearly all of LAFC’s most threatening approaches came from Mosquera’s side; on the other, that was always going to happen and what is the rest of the defense/team for if it isn’t to put out the fires he starts?

As anyone who read the scouting report below knows, I was bullish Portland’s chances in this game, if with terms and conditions. One big one: locking down the space where God, all the angels and everyone else knew they’d attack – i.e., through Denis Bouanga and at the right side of the Timbers defense. So, sure, Mosquera made two games’ worth of gaffes last night, but LAFC does not go into the locker room up 2-0 at halftime if just one other field player comes within a country mile of Timothy Tillman trotting up the middle of the field. With no one but an equally-exposed Crepeau to stop him, Tillman slotted home (only available in the full highlights, apparently) and that’s how Portland wound up in that deep hole. 

The final whistle blew on a 2-3 road loss for the Timbers, their (fer crissakes) seventh game(!) with one or fewer points – and, relevant to the overall situation, they’ve picked up zero points out of the balance of those games and just three (fucking) points from the last 21 on offer. And where can that leave a team but riding shotgun with the dregs of the league.

But, wait! There’s more! So much more! Not all of it good, but – hey! – some of it is!