Saturday 25 July | 7:30 pm Pacific Time
🏟 | BMO Stadium – Los Angeles, California
Looking for their third straight MLS regular season win after the World Cup break, LAFC welcomes Sporting Kansas City to BMO Stadium for a Saturday night match hosted by Toyota.
Third-place Black & Gold inflicted a 3-1 defeat on fourth-place Real Salt Lake City in midweek, receiving a goal each for the second game in a row from attacking stars Son Heung-min and Denis Buanga. LAFC (9W-5L-3D) will now face 15th-place SKC (4W-10L-2D) in both clubs’ final match before the MLS All-Star Game next week, as well as LAFC’s penultimate match before the start of the first phase of the League Cup on August 5.
“There are areas we need to improve,” head coach Marc Dos Santos said after the RSL win. “The positive thing I saw was that when I went into the locker room to talk to the guys after the game, we were critical: ‘Okay, we won, but we could have been better.’ I think that’s what builds a winning mentality – within the victories you can also appreciate and continue to improve as a team.”
THESE TWO AGAIN
Since returning from the World Cup, LAFC have triumphed over two teams from the Western Conference’s top 9 – beating the Galaxy 3-0 away and RSL 3-1 at home. Buanga and Son were dangerous throughout both matches, and Son – LAFC’s lone representative at next week’s All-Star Game in Charlotte – scored two blistering goals from the top of the box that recalled Puskas’ Premier League-winning days in England. Son leads all MLS players in assists with 10, but his transition strikes against Galaxy and RSL were his first two goals in league play in 2026 and earned him MLS Team of the Tour recognition. Watching their most world-famous teammate finally hit the net sparked positive emotions throughout the team.
“It’s good for the team because Sonny is very important to us,” Buanga said. “When Sonny has a good feeling, he’s good for the team because he helps a lot. He scored now. I think it’s not the same Sonny (as) before the World Cup. Because now he’s fresh… you saw it tonight and I think it’s (just) the beginning.”
SERIES
LAFC leads the all-time series against Sporting with a 9W-4L-2D regular season record and a 30-16 goal advantage – not counting LAFC’s 3-1 win in the 2024 US Open Cup Final.
LAFC have won four straight against SKC and are unbeaten in their last 10 matches against Kansas in all competitions, outscoring them 23-5 over that period. Sporting’s last win in this series came five years ago: a 4-0 finish in August 2021, LAFC’s first and only season without a playoff. SKC’s last win at BMO Stadium came earlier in the year, 2–1. Since then, SKC has not scored more than one goal against LAFC in ten matches and has been out of action five times in that time. In their 16 all-time meetings, SKC has scored more than one goal against LAFC only three times.
The last time the two met was on June 8, 2025, with LAFC winning 3-1 at BMO Stadium in the final Black & Gold game before leaving for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. Striker Dejan Jovelic, who had been a thorn in LAFC’s side during his Galaxy career, opened the scoring in the 39th minute. LAFC defender Eddie Segura headed in a corner from Bouanga to level the score, then Bouanga added a penalty in the 59th minute and picked up his second assist of the night, feeding striker Olivier Giroud at the 90’+3 mark.
Despite LAFC’s dominance in the series, Buanga – LAFC’s all-time leading scorer with 113 goals in all competitions – has only scored twice against SKC since joining the Black & Gold in the summer of 2022. Buanga’s final goal of the series came on May 17, 2023, when LAFC and SKC played to a 1-1 draw in Los Angeles.
JCC REPORT
Sporting got off to a rocky start this year with the 1W-8L-1D series, during which the club parted ways with long-time head coach Pieter Vermees. Most recently, SKC won three of their last five matches, picking up nine of the 14 points that head coach Rafael Wicky’s team has collected for the season.
SKC has played twice since the World Cup break, with a tough 3-2 derby loss away to St. Louis City and a 2-1 home win over Minnesota United on Wednesday. In the win over MNUFC, designated players Yovelich and Manu Garcia scored in each half to secure the club’s second home win of the season, despite Minnesota giving away more possession (58%-42%) and losing the xG battle (2.0-1.3).
Earlier this year, Sporting acquired Angolan striker Kapita Capemba from the Polish top flight. Capemba has come alive recently, scoring an STL goal and assisting Yovelich against MNUFC.
Vicky said: “We are growing. We had a very bad period in April, which was very, very bad and very difficult for various reasons, but I feel like we recovered from that before the World Cup and grew. Now we are continuing to build. We are continuing to integrate new players. As I have mentioned several times, I am very happy that (centre back) Or (Blorian), (left back) Emir (Karić) and (centre back) Moises (Mosquera) are now with us. They are will help this team a lot.”
SKC COULD WINN IF
Yovelich leaves the game. The Serbian striker (above right), who turns 27 next month, is a master of movement without the ball, varying his run and speed at a canter to lose his marker. Eddie Segura and Aaron Long met Yovelich last year following his move from the Galaxy, but LAFC’s other two centre-backs, Nkosi Tafari (three minutes against SKC in 2025) and Ryan Porteous (zero minutes), are not as familiar.
With eight goals and two assists this season, Jovelich has scored 10 goals in each of the last five seasons; there are only two other MLS players at this club (Christian Espinosa, Hani Mukhtar).
LAFC WILL WIN IF
His makeshift midfield continues to shine. With holding midfielders Igor Jesus (knee) and Steven Eustaquio (loan expired) and attacking midfielder Timmy Tillman temporarily sidelined (leg) missing, LAFC played its final two games with Mark Delgado, Mathieu Choiniere and temporary No. 6 Eddie Segura on the field for 510 of a possible 540 minutes against the Galaxy and Real Salt Lake City. The results were impressive, with Delgado and Choiniere providing assists and Segura stepping in to anchor the midfield defense. “It doesn’t look ideal,” Dos Santos said of his current midfield shuffle, “but our job is to find ways to win games because it’s hard to win games in this league.
“Timmy (Tillman) is very, very close and hopefully he can get some minutes against Kansas City,” Dos Santos added.