Saturday, August 22 | 7:30 p.m. PT
presented by Metro by T-Mobile
🏟 | BMO Stadium - Los Angeles, CA
🖥 | WATCH: Apple TV | Coupang Play (Korea), SpoTV (Korea), Local Bar Partners
📻 | LISTEN: 710 AM ESPN, ESPN LA App, SiriusXM FC 157 KFWB 980 AM La Mera Mera (Spanish), & KYPA 1230 AM (Korean)
LAFC welcomes the Portland Timbers to BMO Stadium for a Saturday night matchup of two 2025 playoff teams headed for the 2026 MLS postseason.
LAFC comes in with a 10W-7L-4D record and a third-place position in the Western Conference standings, despite two straight 1-0 losses in league play. Portland is 8W-9L-3D in the MLS regular season and in ninth place in the West, having won four of its last six MLS matches (4W-1L-1D).
The Black & Gold fell 1-0 Wednesday night in Colorado, where LAFC has not won since 2018. For the second straight match an individual error near LAFC’s goal led directly to the matchwinner for the opponent. “The result is disappointing, of course,” head coach Marc Dos Santos said afterward, “especially, I feel, the last two games, the last two losses, the two goals we conceded are soft. To lose conceding a goal like this it's very soft. It's naive from us.”
On the year, LAFC’s plus-14 goal differential ranks third in all of MLS, but over the club’s last three MLS matches that number has been minus-2, including a 1-1 draw on the road against Vancouver on August 1. “Our last two losses by a one-goal margin – it is really, really thin,” Dos Santos said. “At some point we could have gotten points from the two games, but sometimes it's like that. You have to stay strong and we have the opportunity to answer at home against Portland.”
LAFC has a record of 6W-7L-7D against Portland, all-time, in MLS regular-season play, with four of those wins coming at BMO Stadium.
ABOUT THE TIMBERS
LAFC’s last two opponents met Wednesday night at Providence Park in Oregon, where the Timbers capitalized on the red card that San Diego star Anders Dreyer earned in the final minutes of SDFC’s 1-0 win over LAFC last weekend.
Playing without Dreyer, one of the league’s top attacking weapons, San Diego fell to the Timbers, 3-1, while Portland claimed its sixth win in its last nine outings, including two wins in Leagues Cup.
Timbers forward Kristoffer Velde contributed to all three Portland goals against San Diego and was named to the MLS Team of the Matchday on Thursday morning. Velde scored from distance in the first half against SDFC and assisted on both second-half goals, bringing his season tally to 13 goal contributions (5g/8a), which is tied for the most on the team alongside striker Kevin Kelsy (9g/4a).
YOUNG BLOOD
The last time these two sides met, on April 11, LAFC goalkeeper Cabral Carter was summoned from the bench in the first half when that night’s starting keeper, Thomas Hasal, suffered an early facial injury. The 22-year-old Carter performed valiantly against the Timbers, holding the home side to a single goal and keeping LAFC in the game before a Kelsy header in stoppage time handed Portland a 2-1 win.
Carter started in Colorado at midweek this week – his first ever start in MLS play – and again performed valiantly, making a daring penalty save in the second half and holding the home side to a single goal in LAFC’s 1-0 defeat.
“I'm definitely disappointed with the result,” Carter said after the Colorado match. “Today is a day I've been dreaming of for over 10 years now. I've been in the LAFC Academy since I was 11 years old and have always been striving to make my first start for the first team one day, and today was the day … I’m disappointed to not get a point or a win today, but proud of being able to make a very long journey and a long-time dream come true.”
LAFC CAN WIN IF
A rested Son Heung-Min and Denis Bouanga return home to BMO Stadium with fire in their legs. After the World Cup, Bouanga started the next eight games for LAFC before coming on as a second-half substitute in Colorado, playing 709 out of 720 possible minutes in that stretch. Son also started those first eight post-World-Cup matches.
“We had to give a break to some players today,” Dos Santos said after rotating his roster against the Rapids. “Do I want us to always be on the field with the best players possible and stretch them like they're robots? Yeah, I'd love to, but it's not a reality.”
With LAFC’s dynamic duo having topped off their gas tanks, look for the home atmosphere at BMO Stadium to restart their engines.
PORTLAND CAN WIN IF
It capitalizes on the thin margins afforded by LAFC’s greedy defenders. The Black & Gold allowed just four shots on goal to a rested and fit Colorado side, and only two to San Diego. LAFC leads MLS in clean sheets (11), ranks second in goals allowed per 90 minutes (1.0), and seventh in shots on target allowed (82) despite playing more games than the six teams ranked above it.
In other words, LAFC's back half does not allow many chances. Look for Portland to try and squeeze one in by earning a penalty, corner, or free kick - like San Diego, Colorado, and Vancouver all managed to do this month - and steal valuable points on the road.
Stick around after the LAFC-Portland match as LAFC's Special Olympics Unified Team takes on Portland Timbers Unified on the main pitch at BMO Stadium. The match will also be livestreamed at youtube.com/LAFC.
