A bridge was crossed Saturday night at BMO Stadium and the club that crossed it needed every man on its roster in order to reach the other side, where a whole new world awaits.
LAFC’s 2-1 defeat of Mexican giants Club América - in a 120-minute thriller that thrust the Black & Gold into the FIFA Club World Cup 2025, the biggest competition of its kind in football history - required top-level performances from everyone wearing a black and gold crest. From the veteran goalkeeper, who led his group calmly throughout, pushing from the back as they passed through the storm together, to the soft-spoken midfielder who fought individual battles in and around the center circle for two straight hours and scored his first goal for his new club along the way, to the sublimely gifted and pathologically competitive winger who somehow keeps topping his own big-game performances—each one usurping the one before it—Saturday’s all-or-nothing contest against the most venerated club in North America over the last century called for a heightened level from everyone involved.
LAFC needed the absolute maximum from its other eight starters aside from Hugo Lloris, Igor Jesus, and Denis Bouanga, and it needed everything from its five substitutes, as well. The team needed its unused reserve players, who rose from the bench as the game wore on and shouted encouragement from the touchline— then ignored the touchline and sprinted to Bouanga to embrace him after he scored the goal that represented their final step off the bridge and onto the other side.
The club needed the full-throated fans who ceded half their stadium to their guests from Liga MX; and it needed its coaching staff, including and most importantly its manager, Steve Cherundolo, who has six months remaining in his last season at the helm of LAFC, and who now has a new adventure to chase with the men he has guided to this point over the last three-and-a-half years.
“This was an opportunity that showed up in our lives three weeks ago,” Cherundolo said of the chance to face América for the last spot in the FIFA Club World Cup’s 32-team field after Club León was removed from the competition. “This feels amazing. There's no better way to qualify for a tournament than winning games ... When the idea was presented, we all kind of shrugged but after seeing and living through tonight—what a great idea. Both teams fought extremely hard for it, and I'm just really happy we came out on top.”
From the first kick, BMO Stadium was filled with an almost tangible energy, with a rarely-experienced noise level and two smoke clouds released by each half of the evenly-ticketed crowd that saturated the arena in a thick haze—half yellow, half black—until they merged at midpitch into a grayish brown that made LAFC captain Aaron Long suspect that referee Wilton Pereira Sampaio would pause the match.
“It was hard to talk to each other out on the field,” Long said. “It was so loud tonight, I think my voice has gone a little bit from screaming. But what an atmosphere. These are the games that you live to play in as a player.”
The brief break afforded by a yellow-card foul in the 18th minute against LAFC’s Mark Delgado, who lay briefly on the field receiving medical attention, finally allowed everyone, spectators included, to catch their breath before the remainder of a physical, tactically cautious, and scoreless first half played out between the two penalty areas.
In the 64th minute, it was Delgado who saw yellow for a foul that led to a penalty kick, following a VAR review, for América forward Brian Rodriguez. In the stadium where he had tallied eight goals in 55 appearances for LAFC between 2019 and 2022, Rodriguez guided his penalty past a diving Lloris then respectfully declined to celebrate in his former home.
“I think we had things under control, even though they did score,” Cherundolo said post-game. “Before that [goal], our team played in the right way in the areas we chose as a coaching staff to hurt Club América, or to control and contain Club América, which is an excellent team. A lot of the things that we wanted to see tonight, I saw from minute one, so I was quite happy.”
Four minutes after falling behind 1-0, Cherundolo made the first in a series of substitutions, bringing on winger David Martínez in exchange for starter Nathan Ordaz, who had spent most of his 68-minute shift sprinting.
“Of course you come alive a little bit when you're down and there's a lot on the line,” Cherundolo said, “but our response was incredible—physically, tactically, and mentally. What we can change as coaches, how we sub and the moments you sub, I think that was also very important to change the momentum and trajectory of the game and help our team.”
In the 74th minute, Cherundolo brought on legendary French striker Olivier Giroud and another attacker with UEFA Champions League experience, Cengiz Ünder. The change spoke to LAFC’s commitment to building a deep, internationally competitive roster within the restrictive, parity-first rules set forth by Major League Soccer. “The amount of time and effort and energy and money that the ownership group and the front office has put into this club to make this team what it is— to try to push the league forward, they deserve [this win], we deserve it as players,” Long said.
“We are maximizing the dollars we get to spend,” Cherundolo added, “we maximize and stretch every single dollar to try to compete with the best in our region. And now we get to compete with the best in the world.”
The only member of LAFC’s starting front three who was not replaced was, as usual, Bouanga, the two-time MLS Best XI selection whose highlight-reel goals overshadow the relentlessness he plays with over 90 minutes and, in Saturday’s case, beyond.
“You need to see Denis day in and day out,” said Cherundolo. “Denis is a competitor. Loves to win, loves to compete, thrives on duels, thrives on moments that he creates, but also is a team player … His competitiveness I think it's a little underrated. He's a true competitor and doesn't stop and is absolutely livid with me when I take him off the field.”
In the 89th minute, Bouanga embarked on a vintage dribbling run and took a shot that was deflected by a defender over the goal line. Bouanga’s ensuing corner kick fizzed head-high into the six-yard area, where Jesus, the 22-year-old midfielder, muscled himself into position and nodded it past América goalkeeper Luis Malagón to tie the game 1-1.
“He's a monster, he's a monster,” LAFC fullback Sergi Palencia said of Jesus, the defensive expert who joined the club in January and whose equalizer Saturday night was the first goal of his LAFC career. “The maturity of how he faces these kinds of games, this challenge, how young he is—he just came here to the U.S., alone. Now he has his kid and his wife here, but he came alone at first. He adapted here, at this speed, it's amazing. This guy is unbelievable. He did an incredible job, not just the goal, with everything.”
“For such a young man,” said Cherundolo, “he plays in a very mature manner and has been incredible for us. We can't take him off the field, nor do we want to. I'm really excited about his future.”
With the game tied 1-1 at full time, the two sides played two 15-minute extra-time periods that saw nine combined shots from both teams, who were now swinging at one another like prizefighters in the final rounds, willed onward by the belt waiting at ringside.
The ninth and final shot finally landed on the visitors’ chin.
Bouanga, running as if the match had just kicked off, received an entry pass from Eddie Segura that he played to substitute midfielder Frankie Amaya at the corner of América’s box before sprinting toward the penalty area. Amaya played a one-touch pass to Giroud at the top of the box, where France’s all-time leading goal scorer brought the ball to a stop and stepped aside so Bouanga could do the rest. A deflection helped Bouanga’s right-footed missile evade Malagón before it settled into the net, sending BMO Stadium into the kind of hysteria previously reserved for Gareth Bale’s extra-time equalizer in the 2022 MLS Cup Final, or Omar Campos’ extra-time matchwinner in the 2024 U.S. Open Cup Final, or any of the world-class golazos netted by the club’s all-time leading scorer Carlos Vela, who had announced his retirement four days before Saturday’s thriller.
The normally reserved Cherundolo raced to the corner, past the dogpile that had formed around Bouanga, and celebrated with pumped fists and raised voice with LAFC’s supporters. “It was just pure, raw emotion,” he said. “It's me wanting to celebrate with our players and our fans because they deserve it and we deserve it, and it's kind of a culmination of three-and-a-half years of hard work and dedication that just kind of explodes in that moment.”
It was Bouanga’s 80th goal in an LAFC shirt in all competitions. The previous 79 had won Golden Boots and had sealed derby wins and playoff victories and knockout-round conquests, but this one, he said in French, “was the most important. It brings us to a stage, to a competition we were not scheduled to do, so yeah, it's definitely the most important.
“It's a goal that put Los Angeles, that put the club in the world stage. I had this rage in me, like, I wanted that,” he added.
“I got goosebumps. To see my family, my kids, being so happy. Yeah, goosebumps all over my body, and some tears.”
Said a smiling Palencia, in Spanish: “There are no normal games with this club. Everything is epic.”
Cherundolo called Saturday night “probably my most gratifying moment personally since I've been at LAFC.”
As for the Black & Gold’s group-stage matches in the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 against Chelsea (England), ES Tunis (Tunisia), and Flamengo (Brazil), Cherundolo said, “I haven't really thought about the Club World Cup and our opponents … we will be as prepared as we possibly can and we will come up with a plan that can work. But, I don't think it's any secret [that] to beat those teams we need to play perfectly. We needed to play near perfectly tonight. We didn't, but we were pretty close and that's why we won. So, it would take a similar effort, performance, and match plan against Chelsea. But, we'll deal with it in a couple of weeks.”
The rest of Saturday, and the earliest part of Sunday, was dedicated to a celebration that LAFC Co-President, GM, and team architect John Thorrington called “full-hearted.”
Amid the postgame pandemonium stood Eddie Segura, the quiet centerback who has been with the club since 2018, longer than any other current player by far, having joined the club when it first began dreaming of crossing this bridge onto the world stage. Segura had played all 120 minutes Saturday night after missing nearly two full seasons following a knee injury. He seemed to summon Vela and all of the other teammates he’s worn the black and gold with over the years when he said in Spanish, while holding his daughter in his arms:
“To succeed in this opportunity is a way to pay homage to everyone who has been a part of LAFC since the first day. Those who are here and those who have moved on, we appreciate them because they have all played their part. Now we have this great opportunity to go represent LAFC, represent the league. And we’ll do so in the name of everyone who has played a part.
“We have all of you in our hearts. Let’s go get more.”
LAFC resumes MLS regular-season play against Sporting Kansas City at BMO Stadium on Sunday, June 8, at 7:30 p.m. PT. LAFC begins group-stage play in the FIFA Club World Cup on Monday, June 16, against Chelsea (English Premier League) in Atlanta.
