When John Thorrington began remaking LAFC’s roster this offseason, there were several traits he was looking for. He wanted players who were talented, of course, but he also wanted versatility, leadership and big-game experience.
In other words, he wanted players like Mark Delgado.
Delgado rewarded that faith Tuesday, scoring the lone goal in LAFC’s 1-0 win over Colorado in the deciding second leg of a first-round CONCACAF Champions Cup playoff at BMO Stadium. The score left the teams tied, 2-2, on aggregate goals but LAFC will advance to the next round on away goals, thanks to Aaron Long’s late score in the playoff opener last week in Colorado.
LAFC will play host to the Columbus Crew in the opener of the round of 16 playoff on March 4. The second game will be played March 11 in Columbus, where LAFC lost both the 2023 MLS Cup final and last summer’s League Cup final.
LAFC, playing in the CONCACAF tournament for the third time in six seasons, made the final in its two previous trips, the only MLS team this century to accomplish that. But it’s also the only MLS club to lose two finals, falling to Tigres in a single game in a COVID bubble in 2020 and losing both ends of a two-leg final to León three years later.
The team’s deep CONCACAF run in 2023 forced LAFC to play a league-record 53 matches that season, covering enough miles to circumnavigate the globe 2½ times. It was a lesson learned for Thorrington, the team’s general manager, who said the team he built this winter is the deepest LAFC has had at the start of a season.
One of those additions was Delgado, a versatile midfielder who helped the Galaxy to an MLS title last season, then got a multiyear contract from Thorrington after moving 11 miles up the freeway to LAFC last month.
“We know we have a really busy start to the season relative to last year,” said Thorrington who team, with Tuesday’s win, will play at least 10 games in the first 35 days of the season. “So our objective was to get as deep and robust as possible to manage that early-season load.”
But if Thorrington added depth, experience and versatility, he didn’t add much scoring punch. LAFC’s only score in the CONCACAF opener came on Long’s header in the 87th minute. And it got just one goal in its MLS opener, a 1-0 win over Minnesota United last Saturday.
LAFC was sixth in the 29-team league in scoring last season.
With Long’s goal carrying extra weight in the CONCACAF Cup’s aggregate scoring, LAFC needed just one score to eliminate Colorado and it got that four minutes into the second half.
David Martínez set up the goal, driving hard up the right side of the penalty area, then sending a low right-footed cross into the center of the box where a sliding Delgado just enough of his right boot on the ball to redirect it past Colorado keeper Zack Steffen.
The goal was Delgado’s first since for LAFC and it made him the only player to score for all three of Southern California’s MLS teams, Chivas USA, the Galaxy and LAFC.
Second-half sub Nathan Ordaz appeared to double the lead in the 74th minute but the score was waved off because teammate Jeremy Ebobisse was offside. So it fell to goalkeeper Hugo Lloris to preserve LAFC’s advantage on the away-goal tiebreaker and his defense made it easy; Lloris was not called on to make a save in recording his second shutout in four days and his 16th in all competition since coming to L.A. last winter.
Colorado failing to score at BMO Stadium isn’t exactly news, however. The Rapids have yet to beat LAFC at home in eight tries and have failed to score in their last five visits. Colorado has been outscored 23-2 all-time at BMO Stadium.
