LAFC looking for way to score, clinch a playoff spot
Steve Cherundolo is unconcerned with his team's reaction following another missed chance to collect a trophy this year.
“We're all professional enough,” the Los Angeles Football head coach said after Wednesday's Campeones Cup setback to Liga MX champions Tigres UANL. “If you look back on the Champions League final, three days later against Altanta at home was one of our best performances of the season.”
Except for the statistic that matters.
LAFC dominated nearly
every aspect against Atlanta in June, but because of visiting goalkeeper Brad Guzan's eight saves, including a few improbable ones, the match ended in a scoreless draw.
Again, an inconsistent ability to find goals has been unusual for the No. 1 scoring team in MLS since 2018, but not a concern for Cherundolo.
Currently riding three straight 0-0 outcomes, LAFC has gone without a goal 12 times in all competitions in 2023 — an outlier statistic since they were shut out in 19 matches the previous five seasons combined, never more than a handful in any single campaign.
Instead, LAFC's secondyear head coach expects they will come because the club's chance creation remains potent, even as it won five of 18 league contests since becoming the only MLS side to lose both legs of a CONCACAF Champions League final.
For a team that has won titles and wants to add to its tally, dropping a second Cup match at home this year “actually should (tick) us off more,” Cherundolo said.
As Real Salt Lake visits BMO Stadium today for the first of four remaining regular-season matches LAFC has leading up to the playoffs, can being peeved lead to better results for the reigning MLS champs?
“If dealt with the right way, if channeled in the right direction, it can keep a group, can keep an individual, can keep an organization hungry for more,” Cherundolo said Friday. “And I think that's what we're trying to do and from what I can tell all the signs are pointing in that right direction that the players are upset — not defeated but upset — and are channeling that into trying to achieve more and staying hungry and not just relying on what we've done in the past. We'd like to write a little more history.”
Based on the statements of players and coaches over the years, “turning the page” is often considered the best course of action to move beyond a bad result.
Center back Aaron Long is in that mode. The veteran American international said he sees no point in him or his teammates feeling sorry for themselves, or dwelling on what might have been against Tigres, or why it wasn't.
Whichever route LAFC players take to arrive there, beating RSL (12-117, 43 points) would secure the organization's fifth playoff berth in six seasons.
Meanwhile, RSL, featuring former LAFC star forward Chicho Arango, can qualify with an upset plus one of several clinching scenarios unfolding in their favor.
Considering that LAFC has cleaned Salt Lake's clock in 11 of their 12 regular-season meetings, including the last seven, and is 13-2 against them alltime, the fifth-place team on a tight Western Conference table might be content having some company in the league record book.