9. Dec. 16, 2020 | LAFC 2-1 Cruz Azul
Unprecedented circumstances surrounded LAFC’s first Concacaf experience. Due to the onset of the COVID pandemic, the Round of 16 series that preceded this Quarterfinal knockout match took place nine months earlier, when LAFC pulled off an inspiring come-from-behind victory over Club León in the Round of 16. Days after that result, Concacaf suspended the tournament. Sport across the world was put on pause for months.
When Concacaf resumed the competition, Exploria Stadium in Orlando was designated as its single host venue, with no fans allowed to attend. LAFC’s two-leg Quarterfinal matchup with Cruz Azul, one of Mexico’s Big Four clubs, was changed to a single-leg, win-or-go-home confrontation played in a stadium with no fans.
Cruz Azul’s Yoshimar Yotún gave La Maquina a 1-0 lead on a 15th-minute penalty kick. Carlos Vela answered with a penalty of his own just before halftime, then, in the 71st minute, 19-year-old LAFC newcomer Mahala Opoku broke the tie with a rocket left-foot volley from the edge of the box that sealed the victory and pushed LAFC into its first ever Concacaf Semifinal.
8. April 5, 2023 | Vancouver 0-3 LAFC
Not many MLS clubs can say they’ve had LAFC’s number at any given moment. Headed into their Concacaf Quarterfinal clash in April 2023, the Vancouver Whitecaps could make that claim. This Caps-vs.-LAFC matchup was the first ever between the two clubs outside of MLS play, where the series was knotted 4W-4L-3T. The Black & Gold had not won at BC Place since 2018 – dropping four straight on Vancouver's artificial turf while getting outscored 6-2. The 2023 Whitecaps came in hot too, having scored seven goals in two Round-of-16 matches.
After a scoreless first half, Denis Bouanga crafted three goals out of thin air over a nine-minute span, pretty much ending the series. The first goal remains among Bouanga’s very best: a 35-yard wonder-strike from straight-on. The second goal came when Bouanga’s trademark pressure forced the ‘Caps into a mistake that Opoku poked into the hosts’ net. And the third was a video-game-style individual goal on which Bouanga executed a deft turn in the penalty area, then an ankle-breaking cutback, followed by an unsaveable left-footed missile into the top corner. Jeu terminé. Game over.
7. April 11, 2023 | LAFC 3-0 Vancouver
The good news: Bouanga was coming off his first-ever MLS hat trick in a win over Austin three days before LAFC’s second leg against the Whitecaps. The hard part: this would be LAFC’s fourth game in 11 days.
When the whistle blew, the tireless Bouanga continued to terrorize Vancouver’s back line. His dribbling run down the left flank drew a clear penalty that Carlos Vela converted. Vela added a second goal—a vintage chest-it-down-and-finish number assisted by Ilie Sánchez—that made it two-nil and marked Vela’s eighth career score in CCC play. Bouanga capped the evening by assisting on a long-range golazo from Jose Cifuentes that banged off both posts and into the net behind current LAFC goalkeeper Thomas Hasal. At the other end, John McCarthy pitched his second straight Concacaf shutout on his way to winning the tournament’s Best Goalkeeper award. More important, LAFC was headed to its second Concacaf Semifinal in as many appearances.
6. April 26, 2023 | Philadelphia Union 1-1 LAFC
Just four months earlier, LAFC and Philadelphia had done battle in an epic MLS Cup Final that fell the Black & Gold’s way on penalty kicks. Now there was another trophy on the line — specifically, a berth in the 2023 Concacaf Champions Cup Final.
LAFC midfielder Kellyn Acosta (currently with Chicago), had scored in that ’22 MLS Cup Final, but it looked like he’d be victim instead of hero this time due to an 81st-minute handball infraction in his own penalty area that was upheld by VAR. Daniel Gazdag’s kick from the mark beat McCarthy (playing in his hometown against his former club) to give Philly a 1-0 lead and send Subaru Park into bedlam.
Reminder here: away goals in CCC matches are crucial. At the end of each two-leg matchup, if the teams are tied on aggregate (combined goals in both games) the side that scored more goals on the road advances. So when a deflected cross came Acosta’s way in the final minute of stoppage-time and he knocked it past reigning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year Andre Blake for the equalizer, LAFC received an injection of hope headed into the second leg in LA.
5. May 2, 2023 | LAFC 3-0 Philadelphia Union
The second leg of the 2023 Semifinal marked the Union’s first visit to BMO Stadium since the 2022 MLS Cup Final in which the league trophy had been ripped from their grasp by an LAFC side that refused to quit. That final, which was tied after 120 minutes of play before LAFC won on penalty kicks, had been the fourth straight draw between LAFC and the Union dating back to 2019. The first leg of this 2023 Semifinal had been the fifth straight draw. The stakes could hardly have been higher on that Tuesday night in May. The winner would move on to face Tigres UANL in the Final of what was then known as Concacaf Champions League.
Timmy Tillman punched in LAFC’s first goal on a corner-kick rebound, then the Union were reduced to 10 men when defender Olivier Mbaizo incurred a second yellow card. Mahala Opoku finished a pass from Vela to make it 2-0 (3-1 on aggregate), and Bouanga finished the scoring with his sixth goal of the competition to that point (he would end up as its leading scorer), sealing a 4-1 series win on aggregate goals, and a berth in the Concacaf Final for the second time in four years.
4. March 9, 2023 | Alajuelense 0-3 LAFC
Nearly three years had passed since LAFC’s last Concacaf match—a bitter defeat to Tigres in the 2020 Final.
The club’s 2023 Concacaf journey would begin in Costa Rica, at historic, 81-year-old Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto, in what would be the second game LAFC had ever played outside the U.S. or Canada. The Black & Gold's opponent, L.D. Alajuelense, was making its seventh Concacaf Champions League appearance, sat atop the Liga FPD table, and was leading its league in goals scored.
The first half contained no goals, but 90 seconds into the second stanza Denis Bouanga finished a Ryan Hollingshead cross to put LAFC ahead 1-0. Twenty-four minutes later, on an almost carbon-copy play, the French-born winger tapped in another Hollingshead cross from the right flank. Then in the 89th minute, Bouanga completed his hat trick by smashing a right-footed missile past the Alajuelense keeper at an acute angle. He jogged away holding three fingers in the air, having scored his first three goals in a blistering 2023 campaign that would see him tally 38 goals in all—ranking him among the top ten players in the world that year.
3. May 31, 2023 | Club León 2-1 LAFC
LAFC could almost feel the heft of its first international trophy. The club had worked tirelessly over the previous year in order to reach this point, and now the 2023 Concacaf Final was here—a chance, over two games, to banish the demons from the loss to Tigres in the 2020 Final and proclaim itself the top club in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Standing in LAFC’s way was Club León, the eight-time Mexican champions who proved their quality by taking a 2-0 lead over LAFC in this first leg, on a balmy night in central Mexico.
LAFC needed a ray of hope, a reason to believe that the second leg in LA would deliver the hardware they craved. In the waning seconds, with the final two kicks of the game, Sergi Palencia delivered a pinpoint cross into the area that Denis Bouanga popped into the León net, shocking LAFC’s hosts and giving the Black & Gold a valuable away goal and a jolt of confidence headed into Leg 2.
2. Dec. 19, 2020 | LAFC 3-1 Club América
In its first ever Concacaf Semifinal, which the confederation shortened to a single-leg knockout match due to COVID (instead of the customary two legs), LAFC fell behind powerful Club América, 1-0, at halftime. LAFC had also been reduced to just ten men following a controversial red card shown to midfielder Eduard Atuesta late in the first half. It looked as if LAFC's Concacaf ride, in which it had eliminated two of Liga MX's oldest and richest organizations, Club León and Cruz Azul, to reach this point, would come to an end.
Carlos Vela decided otherwise. The Mexican legend, reigning MLS MVP, and the first Designated Player in LAFC history put the young club on his back by scoring just ten seconds into the second half, and then again 75 seconds after that, to give LAFC an improbable 2-1 advantage. In extra time, with América pushing for the equalizer, Vela played a ball in transition to a sprinting Diego Rossi, whose one-v-one shot was saved by Guillermo Ochoa only to have Latif Blessing knock in the rebound to secure a 3-1 Black & Gold win and an appearance in LAFC's first final, in any competition.
1. Feb. 27, 2020 | LAFC 3-0 Club León
LAFC trailed powerful León 2-0 on aggregate headed into Leg 2 of the 2020 Round of 16, which meant that the Black & Gold would have to win by three goals, and concede none, in order to advance in its first international competition.
In front of a home crowd that exceeded their new stadium's 22,000 capacity, LAFC went on the attack as Vela punched a loose ball past León keeper Rodolfo Cota in the 27th minute to give the home side hope with a 1-0 lead.
Hope became belief in the 77th minute, when Vela's left foot redirected a cross past Cota to turn the aggregate deficit into a 2-2 tie.
Just two minutes later - in what stood as the greatest goal in BMO Stadium history before Gareth Bale's headed equalizer in the 2022 MLS Cup Final - Diego Rossi dribbled tantalizingly along the left edge of the penalty area before chipping a rainbow over Cota's flailing arms, off the crossbar, and in, sending the North End into hysteria. The 3-0 upset made LAFC the first U.S. club in Concacaf history to defeat a Liga MX team after ceding a multi-goal, first-leg deficit, and set the Black & Gold on its way to becoming the first U.S. club to defeat three straight Liga MX sides on its way to a Concacaf Champions Cup Final.
