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Each minute that ticked away in the second half of Friday’s scoreless MLS playoff game with the Vancouver Whitecaps brought LAFC closer to what could have been the end of its season.
Without a goal, the best the team could hope for was a penalty-kick shootout, soccer’s version of a coin flip. Yet LAFC’s offense had shown little sign of life or urgency, going more than an hour without so much as a shot on target.
But that pressure produced poise, not panic. It inspired confidence, not confusion. And that was rewarded when Mateusz Bogusz’s goal in the 62nd minute gave LAFC a 1-0 win and a spot in the Western Conference semifinals for a third consecutive season.
“This roster was built with a lot of leaders and leadership and guys that can step up in big moments,” captain Aaron Long said. “So, yeah, there was no panic.”
“There was no panic,” echoed goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. “The experience of the team and the club and also the coaching staff, they brought calmness.”
LAFC had reason to be calm. Three of the players it had on the field had played in a World Cup; two had lifted the trophy. Four others had won an MLS Cup. When it came to big games, the deciding match of the best-of-three first-round playoff against Vancouver was far from their first rodeo.
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“We have experience in those games,” said coach Steve Cherundolo, who took the team to the MLS Cup final in each of his first two seasons in charge. “At halftime our message to the guys was, look it’s 0-0. We know what we can do in bigger games. And that’s what we saw in the second half.”
The second half also saw two tactical changes by Cherundolo that impacted the result. The first was switching from a 3-4-3 formation to a 4-3-3, which gave the dangerous Bogusz more room to operate. The other was swapping out winger Cristian Olivera, who limped to the locker room at halftime, with striker Olivier Giroud. That pushed Bogusz from the center of the attack to a wider position.
“We were killing them,” Vancouver coach Vanni Sartini said. “So they had to do it.”
Maybe. Yet whatever the reason, it paid immediate dividends with LAFC’s offense, dormant throughout the first half, earning six corner kicks in the opening 16 minutes of the second half.
“Guys adapted very well and felt comfortable,” Cherundolo said. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough and certainly showed us that we have a different gear.”
That momentum finally paid off with a goal when Long drove a header from midfield deep in the Vancouver end. Whitecaps’ midfielder Andrés Cubas mishit his attempted clearance and Bogusz bounced on the loose ball, pushing it by defender Ranko Veselinovic before beating goalkeeper Yohei Takoka with a left-footed shot from the center of the box.
Lloris and the defense did the rest, shutting the Whitecaps down for their 13th shutout of the season. The MLS playoffs now take a two-week pause for a FIFA international break before resuming with LAFC playing host to the Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal.
LAFC hasn’t lost in nine games with Seattle, including a 1-0 win in last season’s conference semifinals. Plus the game will be played at BMO Stadium, where LAFC has won 20 games in all competitions and owns the league’s second-best home record. LAFC, the only team in MLS to reach the conference semifinals in each of the last three seasons, is bidding to make a third straight appearance in the league’s championship game.
No team has done that since 2007. The road ahead, however, will only grow tougher.
“We had a very good regular season. But the serious games start now,” said Bogusz, who will spend the international break playing for Poland in the UEFA Nations League. “In this club we always want to play in the final.”
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After all, this time of year is built for teams that react to pressure with poise and to confusion with confidence. Which is why LAFC has lost just two playoff games and one postseason series in the last three seasons.
No other team can say that — yet the best might be yet to come.
“There is still room to improve,” said Bogusz, who has scored 20 times in all competitions this season. “We can still play better. And next game, we’re going to play better.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.