LOS ANGELES — Fielding starting lineups that made the opening match of the Leagues Cup at a half-empty BMO Stadium seem like a second-string event, the Los Angeles Football Club was forced to sort out the result through 12 rounds of penalty kicks against Mazatlán FC.
Tied 1-1 after 90 minutes in the joint MLS-Liga MX competition, the teams cycled through 10 outfield players and goalkeepers before the PK rotation recycled back to the beginning.
When Denis Bouanga skied his second shot of the session over the crossbar (he scored his first), a shot from Mazatlán’s Nicolás Benedetti from moments earlier proved to be the difference-maker for the Mexican side, 11-10, and the Mexican club secured two points to LAFC’s one.
Heading into the competition seeking a second straight trip to the tournament title game, which LAFC lost 3-1 to Columbus last summer, the revamped 2025 edition guaranteed that the two leagues would compete against each other through the entirety of the 54 regionalized games as well as the quarterfinals of the knockout round.
Without the benefit of a break in domestic play, both LAFC and Mazatlán rotated liberally. Playing in front of an announced crowd of 11,409, LAFC swapped out seven players who started in Friday’s 1-0 MLS loss to Portland. Mazatlán, meanwhile, rotated 10 players from a 1-0 defeat to Pachuca over the weekend.
“Regardless of what the opponent does, it shouldn’t really throw us off our game,” LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo said. “We should have solutions. I felt that tonight. Our guys reacted very well and found solutions but couldn’t come up with one more play to finish the game off.”
Cherundolo’s makeshift XI, including goalkeeper David Ochoa in place of Hugo Lloris, who is in France as part of the process to receive a green card, trended in the right direction from the opening whistle, especially along the right flank where David Martínez’s first start in seven matches culminated in a nifty go-ahead finish from the 19-year-old Venezuelan.
Ten minutes prior to chipping Mazatlán goalkeeper Ricardo Rodríguez Mazzocco with the outside of his left foot to make it 1-0 LAFC, Martínez set up center forward Jeremy Ebobisse for a shot inside the box. A short time later, Ebobisse returned the favor to Martínez in front of the visitor’s net, but his shot smashed off the crossbar.
Martínez scored his first Leagues Cup goal when midfielder Timothy Tillman hit a long ball behind the Mazatlán backline. Off a bounce, Martínez did the only thing he could to score with two defenders draped on his back and Mazzocco charging out of the net.
Instead of grabbing control of the contest, LAFC almost immediately let Mazatlán off the hook.
The lone regular in the lineup for Mazatlán, 28-year-old Brazilian striker Fábio Gomes, showed his quality in the 31st minute by turning on a pass behind LAFC’s backline and hammering a shot off the far post for the equalizer.
“We need to be more adept and aware of the scenario,” center back Nkosi Tafari said. “When you score, the first five minutes right after that is definitely going to be high-energy, high-octane spirits from the other side. I think we were just a little naive, is the way to put it.”
Through the 1-hour mark, neither team asserted itself with any kind of authority and both introduced a slew of regular starters into the mix hoping they’d make a difference over the last 30 minutes.
Bouanga, the all-time leading scorer in Leagues Cup play with 12 goals who snapped a string of 26 consecutive starts for LAFC on Tuesday, entered in the 61st minute alongside Sergi Palencia, Nathan Ordaz and Mark Delgado.
For Bouanga and Palencia, they are the only LAFC players to appear in all 11 Leagues Cup games the club has appeared in.
“It’s my job to not only win games, or prepare players to win games, but to protect the players,” Cherundolo said. “Sometimes it’s just the games come in too fast of a fashion for us to start the same team week in and week out. We also believe in everyone on our roster and I think the guys who started tonight did a great job. They certainly did enough to win this game.”
But they did not, leaving LAFC with a lot of work to do. Each league will send the top four teams from its stable during Phase One to the knockouts.
LAFC resumes Leagues Cup play on Friday night against fellow FIFA Club World Cup entrant C.F. Pachuca, which started strong with a 3-2 defeat of San Diego FC at Snapdragon Stadium. The Black & Gold closes Phase One on Aug. 5 against Club Tigres, which dominated Houston, 4-1.
“We’re not going to look at this game and say everything was horrible,” said Jeremy Ebobisse, who started in the middle of the attack. “The reality is we did some good things and also lacked the final product. So we have two games to get it right. We’ll see how the results were in the other games, see where we stand in the table, see what we need to do to get through and have an opportunity to make a run.”
