LAFC extended the best start to a season in club history with a 3-0 victory over Cruz Azul at BMO Stadium on Tuesday night in the first leg of the Concacaf Champions Cup Quarterfinals.Â
The second leg will be played next Tuesday, April 14, at Estadio Cuauhtémoc in Puebla, Mexico, with the winner on aggregate goals advancing to the Concacaf Champions Cup Semifinals.
Son Heung-Min opened the scoring in the 30th minute with his second goal of the tournament, a sliding finish of a pass from Mathieu Choinière that gave LAFC a 1-0 lead.
In the 39th minute, LAFC’s David MartÃnez outmuscled a Cruz Azul defender while dribbling at goal then finished past goalkeeper Kevin Mier to make the score 2-0 at half. MartÃnez struck again in the 58th minute, this time bursting down the left channel before beating Mier at the far post to seal the 3-0 win.
The clean sheet was the Black & Gold's second in five matches in this competition and its eighth in 11 matches overall. In all competitions in 2026, LAFC has a record of 9W-0L-2D and has outscored opponents 27-3.
Up next for LAFC is an MLS regular-season road match against the Portland Timbers at Providence Park in Portland, Oregon, this Saturday, April 11, at 1:30 p.m. PT. The match will be broadcast live on Apple TV and FOX. Local radio coverage is available on ESPN LA 710 AM, the ESPN LA app, KFWB La Mera Mera 980 AM (Spanish), and K-Radio 1230 AM (Korean).
NOTES:
- With the win, LAFC remains unbeaten in all competitions in 2026, improving to 9-0-2 while outscoring opponents 27-3.
- The 11-game unbeaten streak to open a year is an LAFC record.
- In all competitions this year, LAFC is now 6-0-1 at home, keeping a clean sheet in six of those seven games.
- LAFC has not allowed a goal in the last 356 minutes in all competitions, dating back to a 4th-minute goal for Alajuelense on March 17.
- This is the second time this year that LAFC has kept three consecutive clean sheets.
- With the win, LAFC is now 4-4-0 all-time against Liga MX clubs in Concacaf play, including 2-1-0 at BMO Stadium. Both of those wins have come by 3-0 scorelines, with LAFC also beating León 3-0 in the 2019 Round of 16 in order to advance 3-2 on aggregate.
- LAFC is now 2-0-0 all-time against Cruz Azul, having also beaten the club in the 2020 Champions League Quarterfinals in Orlando. Next week’s second leg in Mexico will be the first time that LAFC has visited Mexico to play a team other than León in Concacaf play.
- All-time, LAFC is 14-8-2 in Concacaf play, including 8-2-1 at BMO Stadium.
- With his two goals on the evening, David MartÃnez joins Denis Bouanga and Carlos Vela as the only players in LAFC history to score multiple goals in a Concacaf match. Vela achieved the feat twice in 2020 and once in 2023, while Bouanga did so twice in 2023, once in 2025, and once so far this year.
- MartÃnez is now tied with Bouanga for the second-most goals in the 2026 Champions Cup with four. Only the Galaxy’s Gabriel Pec has scored more.
- Son Heung-Min’s 30th minute goal snapped a nine-game goal-scoring drought for the Korean international. Prior to that streak, he had never gone more than three straight games without a goal in his LAFC career.
- In the nine games in which Son did not score a goal, he recorded eight assists.
- Mathieu Choinière assisted on each of LAFC’s first two goals of the game. These were his first two assists in all competitions for LAFC this year. He is now tied with Mark Delgado for second on the team in assists in the Champions Cup, behind only Son Heung-Min, who has four.
- Six LAFC players - Denis Bouanga, David MartÃnez, Nathan Ordaz, Son Heung-Min, Nkosi Tafari, and Timothy Tillman - have appeared in all five of the club’s Champions Cup games this year. Of that group, Bouanga, Son, Tafari, and Tillman have started all five contests while Tafari is the only one to play the full 90 minutes in each of the five games.
