Saturday, October 17 | 4:30 p.m. PT
🏟 | Citi Field - New York, NY
🖥 | 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)
With just four regular-season matches remaining, LAFC travels to New York City to take on NYCFC at Citi Field in a key cross-conference matchup in which both clubs seek all three points to build toward next month’s MLS Cup playoffs.
LAFC can clinch a playoff berth with a win over NYCFC combined with losses or ties by Portland, Real Salt Lake, and San Diego. But the Black & Gold is also seeking a top-four finish in the Western Conference, which would earn home-field advantage in Round One of the playoffs. The Black & Gold is currently in sixth place – just two points behind fourth-place San Jose.
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LAFC is coming off a convincing 3-1 home victory over Austin FC on Wednesday night that saw the Black & Gold register 28 shots to Austin’s 13, with 13 of LAFC's shots on target compared to just four for the visitors. Denis Bouanga scored two goals for LAFC, giving him a team-best 17 goals on the season, a total that’s tied for fourth in MLS.
Both of Bouanga’s goals were assisted by MLS assist leader Son Heung-Min, whose 15 assists this year are tied with Carlos Vela’s club record for single-season assists – a record Vela set during his 2019 MLS MVP and Golden Boot campaign.
Interim head coach Xavi Tamarit is unbeaten in his two matches in charge of the Black & Gold, drawing first-place Vancouver last weekend before conquering Austin at midweek.
“The game against Vancouver, a lot of us were away [on FIFA international break] before so we didn't have that much of a buildup with Xavi,” forward Jacob Shaffelburg said after the Austin match. “So it's always tough, and we're coming from different styles of play and it was a long international break. Especially for me, it's hard to wrap my head around a new style that quickly ... but I think tonight we just understood the tactics more, being together as a team, being more compact, and getting after teams a bit more in the ways that we want to.”
THE TWO AT THE TOP
The league’s top attacking tandem struck again Wednesday night against Austin.
Son’s goal and two assists pushed him to seven goals and 15 assists in his first full season in MLS, giving him a stunning 38 total goal contributions (19g/19a) in only 40 MLS appearances, including last year’s playoffs.
Bouanga arrives in New York in his usual torrid late-season form, having scored seven goals in his last eight games. His brace against Austin gave him 118 total goal contributions (82g/36a) in just 129 regular-season appearances for LAFC, and marked his fourth multi-goal game of the year in all competitions. It was his 17th regular-season multi-goal game for LAFC, the most in club history. Recently, Bouanga became the second player in MLS history to score 80 goals over a four-year span (Bradley Wright-Phillips).
Tamarit, a native of Spain with coaching experience in Europe’s top divisions, was an assistant with LAFC before being promoted to interim coach two weeks ago. He said he wants to give positional freedom to his star attackers. “Sonny can change the position with Mindo [forward Armindo Sieb] in some moments. Denis can change his position also with Mindo,” Tamarit said after the Austin match. “I want a structure, I want organization, but at the same time I want variability. I want that they have the possibility of – if they are feeling a change in their positions and [are] respecting the role of the position they are changing – I think that can [make] us stronger and more difficult for the opponent … so I think we will see them in different positions in the next games.”
SCOUTING NYCFC
The defending Eastern Conference finalists (NYCFC lost to eventual MLS Cup champions Inter Miami a year ago) are currently in 10th place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 8W-12L-9D – three points shy of the final Wild Card spot. NYCFC lost to Inter Miami in their most recent outing, a 2-0 defeat at Nu Stadium in South Florida on Wednesday night in which star forward Nico Fernández Mercau saw a late penalty kick saved to maintain the clean sheet for Lionel Messi & Co.
Fernandez Mercau, who leads NYCFC with 15 goals this season, came out of the gate red hot, scoring eight goals in his first nine MLS appearances in 2026, but the Argentine has since cooled off, notching only two goals in his last 10 MLS appearances – each of them a 90-minute shift.
Head coach Pascal Jansen has sent out the same starting eleven in NYCFC’s last two matches, with only one change. The lineup features Costa Rican striker Alonso Martinez (recently returned from a year-long knee rehabilitation) and U.S. Men’s National Team goalkeeper Matt Freese, who kept NYCFC in the game against Miami with several full-stretch saves. Forward Hannes Wolf ranks second on the team with six goals. Agustin Ojeda leads the club in assists, with 11.
NYCFC acquired forward Bénie Traoré this summer from Swiss side FC Basel 1893, making him their third Designated Player alongside Fernández Mercau and 31-year-old captain and defender Thiago Martins, who has been with the club since 2022.
LAFC CAN WIN IF
Son and Bouanga – and fellow attackers Shaffelburg, Sieb, and Leo Walta (above) - exploit the narrow field dimensions at Citi Field. LAFC’s front line has showed a new chemistry in the club’s last two outings, and Citi Field’s constrained pitch size tends to force high-volume box entries and quick decisions, which aligns with Tamarit’s ideas and his team’s current form.
NYCFC CAN WIN IF
Captain Martins and his fellow defenders congest the central channels, control possession in the midfield, and neutralize LAFC’s dynamic attacking options. NYCFC must force LAFC into long spells of defending, limit turnovers and dangerous transition opportunities, and get another standout performance from World Cup veteran Freese in goal.
