LAFC @ Seattle Sounders FC - Leagues Cup 2024 - Quarterfinals
Saturday, Aug. 17 at 5pm PT
Location: Lumen Field - Seattle, WA 🏟
Radio: ESPN LA App📱, 710 AM ESPN, KFWB 980 AM La Mera Mera📻
Following a 4-1 win over the San Jose Earthquakes in the Round of 16, LAFC’s Leagues Cup journey continues with a trip to Seattle to face the Sounders on Saturday, Aug. 17, in the Leagues Cup Quarterfinals.
In its second season, Leagues Cup is a World Cup-style tournament that features all 47 teams in Liga MX and MLS, with the Leagues Cup trophy and three automatic bids into the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup on the line.
The LAFC-Seattle rivalry goes back much further than this young tournament. LAFC played its first-ever game at Lumen Field, in March 2018, coming away with a 1-0 win. Seattle knocked the Black & Gold out of the MLS Cup playoffs in 2019 and 2020. LAFC returned the favor last November, defeating the Sounders at Lumen, 1-0, in the Western Conference semifinal. The two clubs will meet again in less than two weeks, in the Semifinal of the U.S. Open Cup.
“It's funny how we keep seeing each other in these big matches,” LAFC defender Ryan Hollingshead said after training on Friday, Aug. 16. “I think it speaks to what both clubs have done. Seattle has been at the top of the Western conference, winning trophies, winning cups for the last five to seven years, and LAFC has been the same. So I think the rivalry is been bred more out of just both teams fighting for the top spot over the last handful of years, and because of that we find ourselves at the end of a lot of these tournaments – the end of the Open Cups, the end of Leagues Cup – playing each other often.”
The Sounders, however, have not beaten the Black & Gold in any competition since May 2021. The two titans have faced off twice this year in the MLS regular season, with LAFC defeating the Sounders 2-1 on February 24 at BMO Stadium and 3-0 on July 20 at Lumen Field. Seattle’s last non-penalty-kick goal against LAFC came more than two years ago, in July 2022.
Denis Bouanga, who scored the only goal in LAFC’s playoff win over Seattle last fall, has 10 scored goals in Leagues Cup over the last two summers, leaving him tied with Lionel Messi (10) atop the competition’s all-time goals list.
Sounders In Depth:
After starting the season in a 1W-5L-3D hole, Seattle has fought back to claim seventh place in the current Western Conference standings, with a league record of 10W-8L-7D.
Seattle has done it with the same core group that made their MLS playoff run in 2023. New addition Pedro de la Vega has been injured for most of the MLS regular season, so attacking stalwarts like Albert Rusnák and Jordan Morris, and linchpin center backs Yeimar and Jackson Ragen have stood strong with the Roldan brothers, Alex and Cristian, just as they’ve done over the last two to three years.
The thriving Sounders have gone 3W-1L-0D so far in Leagues Cup 2024, the lone loss coming to Mexican club Necaxa in a game that saw several Seattle starters rested. Each of their four Leagues Cup games this summer has been played on the synthetic turf at Lumen Field, including the Sounders’ 4-0 thumping of Pumas UNAM in the Round of 16 earlier this week.
Seattle got one goal and two assists in that game from their main playmaker, Albert Rusnák, plus two goals from striker Jordan Morris. “Jordan's a phenomenal player,” Hollingshead said. “Been in the league a long time, been with Seattle winning trophies for them for a long time. Tons of speed, tons of pace, a player we know well. We know what he likes to do.
“After the last couple of results they've had against us at home, that team is gonna be looking to him to change that streak, and for him to kind of put the team on his shoulders and do something special like he did against Pumas.”
The Black & Gold Can Win If:
It can exploit the same matchups in personnel and space that it has exploited in its recent bouts with the Rave Green. The significant home-field advantage the Sounders usually enjoy at Lumen Field hasn’t paid dividends recently against LAFC, who have been ruthless with their chances.
“It's an intense match, there's little room for error,” LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo said Friday. “The mistakes that are made, the opportunities that are given, you need to capitalize on. In the past few matches [against the Sounders] our difference makers have made big plays, and everybody on the field has brought the intensity and the tactical discipline needed to beat a team like Seattle, especially in Seattle.”
The Sounders Can Win If:
They score the game’s first goal and successfully manage the game following that breakthrough. Seattle has claimed 2-nil advantages in each of its three Leagues Cup wins this summer, then choked those three opponents into submission. If Seattle can find the net first, its path to the Leagues Cup Semis would be paved more smoothly than if it falls behind to an opponent that has gone 16W-1L-3D in all competitions since early May, and has proven it knows how to close games out, too.
