LAFC extended its club record unbeaten streak to 11 games in all competitions with a convincing 3-0 win over the Colorado Rapids at BMO Stadium on Saturday night. Mateusz Bogusz scored all three goals for LAFC, registering the first hat trick of his MLS career and helping LAFC stay atop the Western Conference standings with a 12-4-4 record for 40 points.
LAFC is now 10-0-1 in its last 11 games, last losing on May 4 in San Jose. In that time, the club has outscored opponents 28-5 with seven clean sheets, including tonight’s victory.
Bogusz put LAFC ahead in the 20th minute, racing in at the back post to get on the end of a Denis Bouanga cross to make the score 1-0. With the goal, Bogusz now has a goal or an assist in nine straight league games, tying a club record while also tying the mark for the longest streak in the league this season.
The score would stay that way until just before the hour mark when Bogusz got his second of the game, reacting to Bouanga’s deflected shot inside the box and firing a left-footed blast past Colorado goalkeeper Zack Steffen to make the score 2-0 in the 58th minute.
Four minutes later, Colorado was reduced to 10 men when Kevin Cabral was shown his second yellow card of the night and sent off.
Bogusz, who scored twice last weekend in the 6-2 win over the Earthquakes, completed his hat trick in the 72nd minute. Timothy Tillman played a pass forward to Kei Kamara, who laid the ball off into the path of Bogusz. The Polish attacker collected the pass and hit a right-footed shot into the net to give LAFC its first hat trick of the season and a 3-0 victory.
LAFC will be back in action on Thursday, July 4, when the club takes on the rival LA Galaxy at the historic Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena. That game between the top two teams in the Western Conference kicks off at 7:30 p.m. PT and is available on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, 710 AM ESPN LA and 980 AM La Mera Mera.
NEWS & NOTES
- With the win, LAFC is now unbeaten in 11 straight games in all competitions and nine straight in the league. Both are club records.
- LAFC remains unbeaten at home this season, going 9-0-2 at BMO Stadium in the league this year for 29 of a possible 33 points.
- LAFC had 11 shots on goal in the match compared to one for the Rapids. This was the fifth time this season that LAFC had 10 or more shots on target. The club is 4-1 in those five games.
- During the club’s current unbeaten streak, LAFC has outscored opponents 28-5 in all competitions and 22-4 in the league.
- LAFC goalkeeper Hugo Lloris kept his eighth clean sheet of the season. He now ranks second in MLS, one behind Charlotte’s Kristijan Kahlina.
- Mateusz Bogusz scored all three goals for LAFC, giving him 12 on the season. Five of those goals have come in the last two games.
- Bogusz is the sixth LAFC player to record a hat trick in an MLS regular-season game, joining Cristian Arango, Denis Bouanga, Adama Diomande, Diego Rossi and Carlos Vela.
- During LAFC’s nine-game league unbeaten run, Bogusz has nine goals and four assists, tallying a goal or an assist in all nine games, giving him 12 goals and five assists on the season.
- With a goal or an assist in the last nine straight games, Bogusz equaled Carlos Vela’s single-season club record from 2019 when he scored in each of the last nine games of that season.
- Bogusz also tied the longest stretch of games with a goal or an assist in MLS this season, matching the tally of FC Cincinnati's Luciano Acosta, who registered a goal involvement in nine straight games earlier this season.
- Bogusz and Bouanga have combined to score 25 goals on the season and are one of three duos in the league to each have double figures in goals. They join Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez (24 combined goals) and Real Salt Lake’s Cristian Arango and Andres Gomez (26 combined goals) as the only teammates to each record 10 or more goals.
- Denis Bouanga was credited with an assist on LAFC’s first goal of the night. After tallying seven assists in 38 regular-season games between the 2022 and 2023 seasons, he now has nine in 20 games this season.
- Bouanga is now one assist shy of becoming the third player in MLS this season with double figures in goals and assists.
- Five of Bouanga’s nine assists this season have set up goals for Bogusz, with four of those assists coming in the last nine games.
