After dominating L.D. Alajuelense in Costa Rica, LAFC returned home on Wednesday night to take care of business in the second leg of the CONCACAF Champions League Round of 16. The match fell midweek between two major league clashes with New England Revolution and Seattle Sounders. Luckily the former was also at BMO Stadium so there was no travel involved with the short Sunday to Wednesday turnaround required.
There was a need for rotation, as was the case at the weekend. Sergi Palencia, Aaron Long, Timothy Tillman, and Stipe Biuk were the only players to start in both matches for the Black and Gold.
Leaving out Ryan Hollingshead wasn't a choice unfortunately, after sustaining a chest injury in the Revolution match as a substitute. Jesús Murillo, Kellyn Acosta, and Denis Bouanga were the starting XI players given rests, though all three made cameos off the bench.
Despite entering the match 3-0 up on aggregate, thanks to a Denis Bouanga hat-trick in Alajuela, ties are never over after the first leg in the CCL. This is a tournament notorious for drama. Alajuelense proved that once again at BMO stadium, receiving a penalty in the 8th minute for a handball on Giorgio Chiellini. Former LA Galaxy center-back Geoncarlo González put home the penalty and just like that it was 3-1.
LAFC dominated the rest of the half but were unable to put the ball in the back of the net. This was mainly because of Costa Rican international goalkeeper Leonel Moreira, who made some fantastic saves to keep his side in the tie.
The Alajuelense shot-stopper kept it up in the second half as his team scored once again, only seven minutes into the half this time. Immediately, the intensity turned up, with Alajuelense only needing one more goal to level the tie on aggregate.
The dominance in every area, bar the scoreboard, didn’t stop from LAFC. They continued to press for a goal rather than revert to a defensive posture in an attempt to prevent the equalizer. LAFC was intent on finding a goal on the night to reward the chances created.
That reward did come for LAFC in the 83rd minute from captain Carlos Vela, who took his time before blasting the ball into the roof of the net. José Cifuentes provided the assist after receiving the ball from Biuk, who had caught Alajuelense out by keeping the ball in by the touchline and quickly finding Cifuentes.
The goal put the tie to bed, knocking Alajuelense out of the CCL. LAFC move on to the quarterfinals and will face a familiar foe in the Vancouver Whitecaps.
The Canadian Champions will host the first leg at BC Place, with Los Angeles playing host for the second leg. With a perfectly even 4-4-3 record in head-to-head matchups, these two sides will need to finally separate themselves for a trip to the CONCACAF Champions League Semifinals!
Finishing Chances
In LAFC’s first game of the season without Denis Bouanga in the starting XI, there was an obvious lack of finishing quality in the final third. In Costa Rica, the Frenchman rode the wave of chances to his first career hat trick. In Los Angeles, those chances went begging.
As mentioned, Leonel Moreira had a fantastic outing in goal, as he did in the first leg. However, with the quality of chances LAFC created, they shouldn’t have been giving Moreira a chance most of the time.
With the Black and Gold having almost 60% possession, LAFC took a total of 26 shots in the match, only only eight of which hit the target. They created six big chances, obviously missing five of them. As a result, they allowed Alajuelense back into the tie when it never should have been close. Fullback Sergi Palencia told me the team had a discussion in the locker room about not letting this happen in the future.
Likewise, Head Coach Steve Cherundolo recognized a need for more clinical finishing. “I think we saw a similar game to the first leg. We created a lot of chances…I think if we finish our chances early the run of the game looks much different." If nothing else, the scoreline certainly would’ve been different for LAFC.
Stipe Biuk Passes the Eye Test
The 20-year-old Croatian certainly contributed to the lackluster finishing yet he was still the best player on the pitch Wednesday night.
From the eye test, he looked like the advertised Stipe Biuk. Quick, direct, and dangerous. He terrorized Alajuelense left-back Suhander Zuniga for ninety minutes despite failing to record a goal contribution in the match. He did play a major part in the goal though, providing the hockey assist, a statistic Major League Soccer records as an assist, but will not go down in the books of a CCL match.
Not to fret, his outstanding performance was still evident on the stat sheet as well, with his creativity shining bright. Here's Biuk's stat line from Wednesday night.
2 fouls drawn
3 successful dribbles
9 duels won
4 chances created
2 big chances created
The Croatian youth international led LAFC in every single one of those metrics.
Finishing is the last piece of the puzzle for a young winger. Biuk is one of the most talented young players in MLS, having been a 2022 Golden Boy Finalist, but fans must be patient with his final third production. The faith will eventually be rewarded.
Echoing this sentiment, “The hardest thing for a young attacker is to be effective and to get on the scoreboard regularly and consistently…He’s a very dangerous player as we all see. The next step is to turn those dangerous moments into scoring moments for the team and for himself and he’s very close…he will start to turn into a very prolific attacker for LAFC.” Cherundolo explained.
This patient approach is no surprise for a player who can’t even drink legally in the United States after moving halfway across the world to play in Los Angeles.
“The club helped me a lot so I adjusted very quickly,” Biuk explained to me. He was able to bring his brother and girlfriend with him from Croatia, avoiding the potential loneliness many players experience after a big move.
LAFC is a club with high expectations, whether that is for Stipe Biuk or the CCL. “LAFC wants to get as far as we can in every competition, but honestly CONCACAF Champions League is something that this club has been built for”, midfielder Ilie Sánchez told me post-match.
He went home happy Wednesday night as his team got themselves one step closer to accomplishing that ultimate goal, becoming Champions of CONCACAF.
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