Saturday, May 24 | 4:30 p.m. PT
🏟 | Stade Saputo - Montréal, Quebec
📻 | 710 AM ESPN, ESPN LA App, and KFWB 980 AM La Mera Mera
🗓 | Calendar sync
Riding a seven-game unbeaten streak in league play, LAFC visits CF Montréal for the 15th match of the Black & Gold’s MLS regular season and a final tune-up for its May 31 FIFA Club World Cup Play-In clash with Club América.
Saturday’s match at Stade Saputo in Montréal will be just the third meeting between the two clubs since LAFC’s inaugural season in 2018, and their first meeting since 2019. LAFC defeated Montréal 5-3 in Quebec in 2018, and earned a 4-2 victory in Los Angeles on May 24, 2019—six years to the day before Saturday’s rematch.
ABOUT MONTRÉAL
CF Montréal (1W-9L-4D, 15th in the Eastern Conference) has scored eight goals and conceded 23 in MLS play this season. Its lone win was a 1-0 road result against NYCFC on May 10.
Montréal was defeated 1-0 on Tuesday night in the first leg of their Canadian Cup Quarterfinal matchup with Forge FC of the Canadian Premier League.
Last weekend, Montréal suffered a 6-1 defeat at home to its top rival, Toronto FC. Montréal defender Joel Waterman was sent off in the 21st minute after he was judged to have denied an obvious goal-scoring opportunity to Toronto. Waterman, fifth on the team in minutes played among non-goalkeepers, will not play against LAFC due to red-card suspension.
This week, Waterman and midfielder Nathan Saliba were called up by the Canadian national team ahead of FIFA’s June international window. Montréal goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois was invited to take part in Team Canada's training camp.
ROUNDING INTO FORM
LAFC (6W-4L-4D, 5th in the Western Conference) has not lost a match since its 3-1 defeat in Miami on April 9, which knocked the Black & Gold out of the Concacaf Champions Cup in the quarterfinal stage. Since then LAFC has logged impressive league wins over three teams in the top half of the Western Conference table—Houston, San Jose, and Seattle—by a combined 8-1 scoreline, and has drawn its other four MLS fixtures in that span, including a 2-2 road result against first-place Vancouver.
LAFC has an overall road record of 1W-3L-3D in MLS play this year, including a 2-2 draw with the Galaxy last Sunday in Carson, Calif. Denis Bouanga provided the opening goal against LAFC’s SoCal rivals with a bit of individual brilliance while Nathan Ordaz provided LAFC’s second by finishing a clever final pass from defender Ryan Hollingshead.
For Ordaz, the 21-year-old LA native and LAFC Academy product, it was his third goal of the regular season and his fifth across all competitions. Prior to this season Ordaz had scored just one goal in 34 league appearances.
STARS AND STATS
Bouanga’s golazo in last Sunday’s derby was his 69th goal contribution in 83 regular-season games for LAFC, tying him with Diego Rossi for the second-most in club history. (Rossi needed 104 games to reach 69 goal contributions.)
Bouanga stands just two goals shy of reaching 50 regular-season goals in his LAFC career, and is seeking to become the 15th player in MLS history to score 50 goals in his first 90 games, and the first to amass three straight seasons with 20 goals or more.
Another 2025 MLS All Star candidate, goalie Hugo Lloris, has logged five clean sheets in MLS play in 13 league appearances.
PART OF OUR HISTORY
Montréal forward Kwadwo “Mahala” Opoku made 60 MLS appearances (35 starts) for LAFC between 2020 and 2023 before the midseason trade that sent the Ghanaian international to Montréal. A beloved player during his time in Los Angeles, Opoku is remembered for his positive energy and the matchwinning goal he scored against Cruz Azul in the 71st minute of the 2020 Concacaf Champions League Quarterfinal, when he was just 19.
Opoku has logged just two starts and 19 minutes in MLS play this year due to injury, but he started Montréal’s mid-week cup game against Forge FC.
Midfielder Bryce Duke signed his first MLS contract with LAFC and made 26 appearances in black and gold (five starts) in 2020 and 2021. The Arizona native played for LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo in 2021, when Cherundolo coached the Las Vegas Lights, LAFC’s second-team affiliate at that time. Duke made five starts for Montréal this season before suffering a leg injury and has not appeared for CFM in more than a month
LAFC CAN WIN IF
It focuses on seizing three MLS road points instead of next Saturday’s high-stakes FIFA Club World Cup qualifier against América. The weather in Montréal is predicted to include light rain this weekend, and temperatures in the 40s and 50s—a departure from balmy LA. If the Black & Gold can endure the long flight and the London-like conditions, and can avoid being distracted by next weekend’s events, three points and an elevated spot in the standings are there for the taking.
MONTRÉAL CAN WIN IF
They use the emotion from last Saturday’s difficult result against Toronto and Tuesday’s defeat to lower-division Forge, to kindle a new start and an attacking mindset against the visitors from California. Manager Marco Donadel’s team has been wracked by injury thus far in 2025, but if forward Prince Owusu (team-high three goals) and Donadel’s other healthy players can create a spirited push on Saturday, the environment at Stade Saputo can provide them with a twelfth man.
The 2025 LAFC Secondary Kit
LAFC’s 2025 Secondary Kit is regal, refined, and designed to be worn by players and supporters who expect success.
