Union shut out by LAFC, eliminated from Concacaf Champions League in 4-1 aggregate loss
Olivier Mbaizo's 59th-minute red card didn't help matters, and the two goals that followed seemed inevitable as the Union soccer team fell to Los Angeles FC.
LOS ANGELES — There was a familiar feel to Tuesday night.
Both the Union and the Phillies were playing important games, if not quite the championship games that tied the teams together in infamy. This time, instead of back to back, the play happened simultaneously, with around seven miles of distance (or about an hour of Los Angeles traffic) between the Union taking on Los Angeles FC at BMO Stadium and Bryce Harper making his season debut as the Phillies faced the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium.
The 3-0 final combined with the 1-1 draw in the first leg of the semifinal series gave the Union a 4-1 aggregate loss to LAFC in the Concacaf Champions League semifinals.
“They’re a great team,” said Union manager Jim Curtin of LAFC. “When you look at the history of these two teams, there have been a lot of tight games. They’ve come out on top of them recently, which hurts, but at the same time, I think my group knows that we have a belief we can beat anybody, but we came up short tonight.”
Union captain Alejandro Bedoya earned a yellow card for a crunching tackle in only the second minute of the game, signaling the Union’s intent to play aggressively.
In the 13th minute, a corner kick by Carlos Vela nearly veered into the goal via a redirect by Ilie Sánchez, and, though Andre Blake did well to parry it away, the ball fell to Timothy Tillman in the box. He poked it home before any Union defenders could clear.
After scoring their early goal, LAFC were content to sit back and make the Union work with the ball more. That meant the Union’s usual script was flipped, and LAFC took on the Union’s typical counterattacking role. The Union had to pass the ball more, probing at the LAFC defense for opportunities.
They clearly missed the passing savvy and the game-changing midfield tackles of José Andrés Martínez, who was out with a hamstring injury. The squad often were reduced to passing the ball back and forth in its own backfield to the derisive whistles of the Angeleno spectators.
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A free kick in the 18th minute came to nothing. In the 24th minute, the L.A. supporters behind the goal chanted John McCarthy’s name as he made a good save against his hometown (and former) team from a long-distance shot.
By the time the halftime whistle blew, the Union had racked up as many yellow cards (to Bedoya, Mikael Uhre, and Olivier Mbaizo) as shots, with only two of those on target and mostly from outside the box.
Yet the aggregate score was only a 2-1 advantage to LAFC, meaning one goal would pull the Union even and push the game to penalty kicks.
Perhaps LAFC manager Steve Cherundolo emphasized this to his players during the break, because LAFC came out more aggressive to start the second half. The Union were under pressure in the 55th minute from consecutive free kicks, then a corner kick, before Blake finally grabbed the ball to relieve the danger.
The Union found themselves back in trouble four minutes later, when an outlet pass that sprang Dénis Bouanga led to a second yellow-card tackle by Mbaizo in the 59th minute ending his night.
Down a man and a goal, the Union’s chances seemed bleak. Defender Nathan Harriel came in for Uhre, leaving Julián Carranza stranded up front. Curtin later substituted Quinn Sullivan for Jack McGlynn in the 76th minute.
LAFC again retreated into a more defensive stance, wasting time to tire out their 10-man foe as much as possible.
And not even the last season’s MLS Goalkeeper of the Year could deny what seemed inevitable, given wave after wave of attacks from Los Angeles.
Off a nifty pass from Vela, who saw the open space on the left side of the Union goal, the fresh legs of Kwadwo Opoku charged into the box and shot into the upper corner of the goal in the 82nd minute, sealing the Union’s fate.
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To add more salt into the wound, Bouanga, who had pestered the Union backline all evening, timed his run perfectly into the box to enter alone against Blake and one-time a low shot past him into goal in the 90th minute.
“We conceded [a goal] off a restart; we got a red card and they’re too strong [of a team] to have those little lapses,” Curtin said. “It hurts, but we win as a team and we lose as a team.”
LAFC advances now to the Concacaf Champions League final. The MLS squad will face the winner of the all-Mexican semifinal between Tigres UANL and León in the final. Tigres won its home game of the series last Tuesday, 2-1, and León hosts the finale on Wednesday (10 p.m., FS1, UniMás, TUDN).