Sunday, May 11 | 4:00 p.m. PT
🏟 | BC Place - Vancouver, BC
🖥 | Sunday Night Soccer on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV
📻 | 710 AM ESPN, ESPN LA App, and KFWB 980 AM La Mera Mera
🔁 | Re-air on Tue. 5/13 at 5:30 p.m. on FOX 11 Plus (KCOP-TV Ch. 13)
🗓 | Calendar sync
Western Conference supremacy is on the line Sunday night at BC Place in Vancouver, as LAFC, the club that finished first in the West last season, takes on Vancouver Whitecaps FC, who currently sit atop the table, in a Sunday Night Soccer clash on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.
The Black & Gold has knocked Vancouver out of the playoffs the last two years, winning four of their five postseason meetings in that span. This year’s Vancouver squad, however, has distinguished itself as the league’s most consistent through the season’s first two-and-a-half months.
"They're very active. I think that would be the proper adjective to use describing their way of playing," LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo said of Vancouver at his pre-match media session on Friday. "They're active without and with the ball, and they don't hold back. They go for it when they're in the opponent's half, they are running to goal - not with one or two, but four or five players.
"And in transition they hold no reserves either and are extremely fit and agile and are working very hard. And at the moment they are being rewarded for that work."
FORM CHECK
LAFC (5W-4L-2D) is unbeaten in four straight matches and sits in fifth place in the West and 11th in the Supporters’ Shield standings. The Caps, meanwhile, have lost just once in their last 18 matches across all competitions and own an MLS record of 8-1-2, good for first place in both the conference standings and the Shield race.
MARKED MEN
Each team’s top scorer has been electric lately. LAFC winger Denis Bouanga has notched four goals and two assists during the Black & Gold’s four-game unbeaten run. Caps forward Brian White was named MLS Player of the Month for April after scoring five goals in three MLS starts last month. White also led the Caps to their first ever Concacaf Champions Cup Final. He missed last weekend’s 2-1 league win over Real Salt Lake due to injury, however, and may not be available on Sunday.
BLACK[MON] IS GOLD
Former LAFC defender Tristan Blackmon is playing the best football of his career. Blackmon, the first player LAFC selected in the 2018 MLS SuperDraft, made 64 appearances for the Black & Gold from 2018 to 2021. For this year’s Vancouver side he has started nine games and played 815 minutes; both totals are second on the team among non-goalkeepers. The Las Vegas native has scored two goals in MLS play, he knocked in the winning goal in the final moments of Vancouver’s CCC Quarterfinal victory over Pumas UNAM, and he was named to the MLS Team of the Matchday last weekend after scoring the gamewinner against RSL.
CHANGE AT THE TOP
Perhaps the biggest difference-maker for Vancouver this year has been the club’s new head coach, Jesper Sørensen. Since his hiring in January, Sørensen, a successful player and coach in Denmark’s top division, has led the Caps to the league’s best record and has watched his team score the second-most goals in MLS (22), allow the second-fewest goals (8), and register the league’s top goal differential (plus-14). And Sørensen has done it without midfielder and captain Ryan Gauld, who won the Caps’ Team MVP award in 2022, 2023, and 2024, but hasn’t played since injuring his left knee in Vancouver’s third MLS match of 2025.
"They are certainly the team of the season, and they have been fantastic, and fun to watch," Cherundolo said. "All the credit to them, in rebuilding their roster with a new coach, and playing in a specific way, and really forcing their way of playing on almost every opponent they have played. That will be the wrestling match for us."
PAST MEETINGS
LAFC went 4-1-1 against the Whitecaps in their six meetings over three competitions last year. LAFC won its Best-of-3 MLS Cup Playoff series over VWFC, two wins to one, but was outscored 4-3 on aggregate. (Of note: the only goal in LAFC’s Game 3 victory was scored by then-LAFC forward Mati Bogusz, now with Liga MX club Cruz Azul—Vancouver’s opponent in the Concacaf Champions Cup Final on June 1.)
This Sunday Night Soccer match will mark the 13th encounter between the two teams since the beginning of 2023. LAFC holds an 8-2-2 advantage over their previous 12 matchups, with a plus-12 goal differential (25 goals scored and 13 conceded).
These two are scheduled to meet again at BMO Stadium next month (June 28) in a return match with heightened championship implications.
LAFC CAN WIN IF
It finds the killer pass. Both goals in last weekend’s win over Houston were scored after decisive passes out of LAFC’s defensive half by midfielder Timmy Tillman. LAFC’s two goals in the prior game, against St. Louis, were the result of imaginative deliveries from winger Cengiz Ünder that each covered thirty yards.
If the Black & Gold can collaborate on a similar goal before Vancouver finds the net, even better. All five of LAFC’s league wins have come when the Black & Gold has scored first. Merciless defending helps; four of those five MLS wins were clean sheets.
VANCOUVER CAN WIN IF
Fullbacks Édier Ocampo and Tate Johnson are up for the challenge. Vancouver has faced elite wingers this year. A team cannot advance past Monterrey, Pumas and Inter Miami in CCC play without defending attacks from wide areas. But the Caps have not faced a winger of Bouanga’s quality – or one who presents the kind of danger he poses over 90 minutes while switching sides freely throughout the match.
If Ocampo and Johnson can hold their own against last year’s MLS MVP runner up (and if the Caps get another stellar performance out of Sebastian Berhalter, who has filled Gauld’s role as playmaker and finisher better than anyone could have imagined), the tide in this series may turn.
