No club in MLS history played more games during a two-year span than the 103 LAFC played the past two seasons. It was an exhausting and unrelenting slog that saw the team play a game every five days.
Yet it may prove to be just a warm-up for what the team could face during the remainder of this season. Wednesday’s 3-0 win over the short-handed Colorado Rapids, which snapped a four-game winless streak in all competition, was LAFC’s 28th match in less than five months. If it makes long runs in both the Leagues Cup and MLS Cup playoffs, the team will play another 29 times this season, with seven of those matches coming in the next 26 days weeks.
It’s a tortuous schedule, especially in mid-summer. But it’s also an unavoidable one.
“This schedule is what it is. We cannot change that,” said coach Steve Cherundolo, who got goals Wednesday from Denis Bouanga, Nathan Ordaz and newcomer Javairo Dilrosun. “It’s important not to waste any moments; moments meaning games you can win, moments also meaning chances in each game. So it’s important to play as effective as possible.
“That is our objective.”
Another objective would be to call for help, or at least relief, which is something LAFC figures to do as well. Because while the schedule ahead looks daunting, the team appears to have ample resources to deal with it.
The departures of Olivier Giroud, who returned to France, and Cengiz Under, whose loan from Turkish club Fenerbahce expired, frees up two designated player spots and more than $2.6 million in salary heading into the summer transfer window, which opens in two weeks. And the $10 million LAFC will receive for making the FIFA Club World Cup gives general manager John Thorrington more money to fund a roster upgrade.
“I don’t think there’s been a transfer window that LAFC has not been active in,” Cherundolo said. “We are always trying to improve the team whenever possible. That is just part of who we are and how we do things.
“So I, of course, expect the exact same demeanor this window.”
Exactly what that would look like, Cherundolo said, was a question for Thorrington, who wasn’t taking any this week. But LAFC’s needs are as obvious as they are plentiful.
Bouanga and Ordaz, who scored the first two goals Wednesday, have combined for 13 of LAFC’s 33 goals this season and the departures of Giroud and Under make the offense even more top heavy. Keeping Dilrosun, a former Dutch international on a short-term loan from Mexico’s Club América, could help spread out the scoring but expect LAFC to look to add another attacker in the transfer window just the same
The loss of center back Marlon, whose contract expired nine days ago, has also created a hole, this one on the back line.
Time is critical because despite the win over Colorado, which went down a man in the sixth minute when left back Jackson Travis drew a red card for elbowing defender Sergi Palencia in the face, LAFC (8-5-5) is closer to the ninth and final playoff Western Conference playoff spot than it is to the top of the 15-team table. However the team’s congested schedule means it will play at least more two games than every other team in the conference the rest of the season, something that is both a blessing and a curse.
It’s a blessing because it gives the team two extra chances to make up ground against the teams ahead of them. But it’s a curse in that it means the team’s MLS schedule is the most challenging down the stretch.
“That’s what I like,” Bouanga, whose first-half penalty-kick goal was his ninth of the season 50th in his MLS career, said through a translator. “I like play, play, play. When we train too much it becomes tiring for me.”
The crowded calendar is mainly a result of LAFC’s participation in the Club World Cup, which forced MLS four games, including Wednesday’s match with Colorado, to be rescheduled while adding four non-league games to the schedule. Then there’s the upcoming Leagues Cup, which will force LAFC to play as least three more games and perhaps as many as six.
Ordaz, whose goal early in the second half came off the rebound of a Dilrosun shot, said its important not too look too far ahead.
“You just have to go one day at a time,” he said. “I think we’re all going to be important, the whole team. Everybody’s ready and we’re going to trust in everyone.”
His coach agreed.
“We need to take it step by step, meaning game by game,” Cherundolo said.
“When you’re winning games that’s a great time to have a congested schedule because things are flowing and going in the right direction. So it’s important to get us going, get the ball rolling in the right direction.”
LAFC has been heading in the opposite direction the last month, earning just a draw in four games in all competition and getting shut out three times. Wednesday’s win, however, was the team’s most one-sided since a 4-0 victory over Seattle in mid May. The team also got a big effort from goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who recorded his sixth clean sheet in 16 MLS games.
“There’s no replacement for wins, and more specifically three points in the position we’re in,” Cherundolo said. “So that was very important, regardless of how it happened.”
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