The story of LAFC’s and Seattle’s competitive friction, a story that will add a new chapter this Saturday in the Audi 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs Western Conference Semifinal, began before they ever played one another on the pitch.
Ten years ago, in October 2014, when Major League Soccer announced that there would be a new franchise in the heart of Los Angeles, the Sounders had just won the 2014 Supporters' Shield and 2014 U.S. Open Cup in their fifth year as an MLS side. Clearly the Sounders knew how to build a consistent winner, from academy to senior team, and they knew how to build one fast.
Then here came a new group in LA saying out loud that it planned to do the same, that it would challenge the Sounders and everyone else for Western Conference supremacy. The folks in Rave Green took notice.
In the summer of 2016, when LAFC was breaking ground at the site of its new stadium, Seattle was headed toward its first MLS Cup title. It reached the MLS Cup Final the following year as well. The Sounders weren’t fading, they were gaining momentum.
That was the status quo when LAFC played its first ever game in 2018, at Lumen Field against the defending Western Conference champs. The upstarts won 1-0, with Diego Rossi silencing the crowd by finishing a pass from Carlos Vela in the 11th minute—the earliest an expansion club had ever scored in its first match. The consensus was that the win was a fluke—beginner’s luck.
Then came the rematch the following month in LAFC’s first home game, which was headed for a goalless draw until Black & Gold defender Laurent Ciman scored a dramatic winner with a free kick in stoppage time.
Seattle finished second in the Western Conference that year. The new kids in school, LAFC, finished third. Both were bounced from the playoffs early, but the enmity between them had been firmly set.
The following year it looked like LAFC would gain the upper hand for good. LAFC blew past the Sounders and everyone else in MLS, winning the Shield and setting league records for total points, goals, and goal differential. But the old guard stood waiting in the playoffs, where Seattle stunned the league and broke the hearts of the Black & Gold faithful in the conference final in Los Angeles.
That 3-1 loss remains one of the most painful in LAFC history. Not only had Seattle finished 16 points behind LAFC in the regular season, the 2019 Sounders would go on to win the MLS Cup title that LAFC had seemed destined to claim. It was the Sounders’ second league title in four years. They weren’t going anywhere.
Last week, Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer harkened back to “the mentality of the group that went down there in 2019, that's a big one. We went down a goal and we came back. We weren't afraid to play. We put pressure on them. We didn't just sit back.”
LAFC would fall to the Sounders again in the first round of the COVID-altered 2020 playoffs.
The following year, LAFC didn’t make the post-season and Seattle was ousted in the first round. No one could have predicted that the Sounders’ 2-0 regular season win at Lumen Field in May 2021 would be the Sounders’ most recent victory in the series headed into Saturday’s conference semifinal.
They clashed again, exactly one year ago, when a tired LAFC side arrived for the Conference Semifinal in Seattle, where the Sounders had not lost in 19 previous playoff matches. It was LAFC’s 51st game of the year across all competitions, a preposterous number that set a new MLS record for games played. The Black & Gold would extend that record thanks to a scintillating breakaway goal by Denis Bouanga in the 30th minute, which gave LAFC a 1-0 road win, pushed them to their third Western Conference Final in five years, and quieted Seattle’s home ground crowd.
That might be the loss that stings Seattleites most—the Sounders’ version of LAFC’s painful playoff defeat in 2019.
In the summer of 2024 the rivals played one another three times in the span of five weeks, with LAFC winning a regular-season match 3-0 at Lumen Field, then taking the Leagues Cup Quarterfinal by the same score. In the U.S. Open Cup Semifinal in suburban Seattle, Sounders nemesis Bouanga converted a penalty kick in the 83rd minute to give the Black & Gold a 1-0 win, pushing them toward raising the fourth major trophy in LAFC history.
In all, LAFC is 4-0 against Seattle this year across all competitions, and has outscored the Sounders 9-1 in those games. Seattle’s last non-penalty kick goal against LAFC came more than two years ago, in July 2022.
Seattle knows this recent history and will enter Saturday’s MLS Cup Conference Semifinal starving to set things straight from their perspective. They also enter this match on a roll.
After the slowest start in club history, the Sounders have been the best team in MLS across the second half of the season, with a record of 12W-2L-2D across their last 16 regular-games. They’ve scored 30 goals in that stretch while conceding just 13. Seattle’s defense was the league’s best in in 2024, conceding just 35 total goals in 34 regular-season games—one per game.
In their Round One series against Houston, the Rave Green conceded just one goal across two matches, winning both fixtures on penalty kicks. Prior to the start of the postseason, the club extended Schmetzer’s contract. They know who they are; they believe in who they are.
“We've had a good spell since our last meeting with [LAFC], and I think we've learned a few things here and there, so hopefully we can utilize that knowledge and get a W,” said goalkeeper Stefan Frei (who conceded the first goal in LAFC history on that blustery day at Lumen in March 2018).
A key piece, said Sounders forward Jordan Morris, “is believing that we can play against them. I think sometimes going into these games when you haven’t beaten a team in a while, maybe the belief might not be there. But we know how good we are and I think it starts with just believing and understanding the team that we have, and knowing that we can compete with anyone in this league.”
The stage is set. The two clubs that have earned more wins and points than any other teams in the Western Conference since LAFC joined MLS in 2018, will lock horns—again— with playoff survival at stake. Again.
LAFC defender Aaron Long called the opponent “a team that has been very good to end the season, a team that looks like they're on fire right now in the playoffs, a ton of attacking weapons, very good on the ball in possession, and their defense is one of the best in the league in holding teams to zero.
“It's gonna be a tough match. [Seattle is] another team that has a lot of leaders and a club and a franchise that is very experienced in the playoffs. That's something that they pride themselves on, is how well they do in the playoffs. So it's gonna be tough … It's always tough.”
INTERNATIONAL UPDATE:
Five LAFC players are currently competing for their national teams abroad.
LAFC attacker Mateusz Bogusz started in Poland’s loss to Portugal in Nations League Group Stage play last Friday. Poland fell to Scotland, 2-1, on Monday Nov. 18.
A few days after his 30th birthday, Bouanga opened the scoring in Gabon’s AFCON Qualifier against heavily-favored Morocco before Gabon eventually fell, 5-1. Gabon defeated the Central African Republic on Monday Nov. 18, 1-0.
LAFC forward Nathan Ordaz played 80 minutes in El Salvador’s 1-0 win over Bonaire in the Concacaf Nations League Group Stage last Thursday. Ordaz went 68 minutes in El Salvador’s 1-0 win over Monserrat on Sunday.
LAFC’s Cristian Olivera did not feature in Uruguay’s scintillating 3-2 win over Colombia last Friday in 2026 World Cup Qualifying. Uruguay takes on Brazil on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 4:45 p.m. PT.
LAFC’s Kei Kamara played the first 76 minutes of Sierra Leone's 1-1 draw with Chad on Wed. Nov. 13. Kamara & Co. face Zambia in another AFCON Qualifier on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 8:00 a.m. PT.
For Seattle:
Stuart Hawkins (USA U-19), Reed Baker-Whiting (USA U-20), Nouhou (Cameroon), and Obed Vargas (Mexico) were called to represent their countries during the current FIFA window.
LAFC will host Seattle Sounders FC on Saturday, November 23, at 7:30 p.m. PT at BMO Stadium in the Audi 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs Western Conference Semifinals. The match will be broadcast on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, 710 AM ESPN LA, the ESPN LA app, and 980 AM La Mera Mera (Spanish).
