The Los Angeles Football Club has played 103 games in the past two seasons, never ever realized for an MLS team. However, there were times when it seemed that the only opponent of the schedule was the Whitecaps of Vancouver.
Between the regular MLS season, the MLS Cup qualifiers, the Concacaf Champions Cup and the League Cup, the enemies of the Pacific Coast have done a dozen times.
After raising the MLS 2022 Cup, Lafc entered each match against Vancouver as a “favorite”. Former Whitecaps head coach, Vanni Sartini, labeled the best Black & Gold team on the continent. And the group of Steve Cherundolo was up to invoicing, going 8-2-2 against them by a global score of 25-13.
Vancouver took the chin, facing the elimination of the series of consecutive playoffs, as well as an unbalanced defeat in the Concacaf Champions League in 2023.
Repeated meetings repeatedly succession have always bored Lafc to see the Whitecaps.
And the feeling was naturally mutual.
“It’s funny,” said midfielder Ryan Raposo, a Vancouver player from the Superdraft of MLS 2020 who joined Lafc as a free agent in April. “I think we thought the same thing.”
Visiting Vancouver on Sunday without Raposo, which sorted the visa process, the players and coaches of the LAFC remain positive as to their chances are undefeated in four follow -up matches since the defeat in the quarter -finals of the Concacaf against Inter Miami.
However, the first confrontation between the two in 2025 is set up differently for all the people involved.
At the top of the table in the MLS, having qualified for the final of the Concacaf Champions Cup in Mexico City on June 1 against Cruz Azul, the Whitecaps under the Danish head coach Jesper Sørensen are the story.
“It is a group that has been together for a very long time,” said Raposo about a team he has played since 122 times. “It is a group that is very close, inside and outside the locker room. It is a bunch of guys who grow in the same direction. From what I heard from them, they like the new coach and they all bought what he wants on their part.”
The Sørensen group dominated the first third of the regular MLS season, displaying an 8-1-2 file with a more-4 goals differential. Through 19 competitions in all competitions, Vancouver has only lost twice, doing what Lafc could not beat Miami de Lionel Messi and reaching the continental championship.
“They are certainly the team of the season, and they were fantastic and fun to watch,” said Cherundolo.
Beat Lafc (5-4-2, 17 points) in British Columbia in the Sunday evening confrontation in Football would make Vancouver the fifth team in the history of MLS to accumulate at least 29 points 12 games in one season, and the first to do it since the 2010 galaxy. Three of the previous four raised the shield of supporters.
Transition of the Italian Brandon Sartini to Sørensen, Vancouver has become more active in the four phases of the game – offensive organization, defensive organization and two directions in transition – and, towards the eye of Cherundolo, connected, fluid and in shape everywhere.
By going from five to the back to a 4-3-3, the influence of Sørensen helped the Whitecaps to reach a summit of confidence, attacking joyfully in number without holding anything in reserve.
“Some would describe it as a risk -taking, but for me, it is a logical consequence to stay connected and work very hard,” said Cherundolo.
To do it like the oppressed, “cheat and run a little less and manage with an experience or a good fortune or an individual quality will not work,” suggested the LaFC coach. “The Vancouver star is the team and you must first beat this.”
Lafc in Vancouver Whitecaps FC
When: Sunday, 4 p.m.
Or: BC Place, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
TV / Radio: MLS season pass on Apple TV, Apple TV + / 710 AM, 980 AM
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