LOS ANGELES — Ready to hunt right from the opening whistle, the Los Angeles Football Club overwhelmed the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday, dominating the visitors 3-0 at BMO Stadium.
A pair of first-half goals from Cristian Olivera and another shortly after the break by Mateusz Bogusz came courtesy of Denis Bouanga, who delivered his first three-assist performance in an LAFC uniform.
While Vancouver goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka dealt as well as he could with LAFC’s heavy early pressure, making four quality saves in the initial quarter-hour, LAFC’s wingers proved too much for the Whitecaps.
Following earlier chances that Takoaka turned aside, Olivera put LAFC on the board in the 18th minute when Bouanga fired a line-drive cross at the Uruguayan making a run to the far post.
LAFC then picked Vancouver apart for its second goal in the 37th minute. Weaving through the Whitecaps, the ball eventually ended up at Bouanga’s feet.
The Frenchman muscled past a defender, finding Olivera for a simple tap-in to give the 22-year-old native of Montevideo five goals three appearances after scoring once in his previous 10 contests.
“He’s been working out really hard to put himself in those areas and also finishing those moments in games in order to get on the scoring board and that work is paying off,” Cherundolo said this week after Olivera connected on a brace during Wednesday’s 3-1 U.S. Open Cup Round of 32 victory at Las Vegas.
For Bouanga, whom Vancouver head coach Vanni Sartini described as a killer leading up to the sides’ first meeting since LAFC ended the Canadian’s 2023 campaign with a playoff sweep, the effort gave him 12 goal contributions against the Whitecaps in seven games.
When Mateusz Bogusz’s insurance goal, his fourth of the year, made it 3-0 early in the second half, Bouanga’s final assist pushed him to five in a dozen games this season, a pair shy of his regular season tally from last year.
The field-long sequence began when fullback Omar Campos hit the ball into space down the left side, where Bouanga sprinted to the Vancouver box before setting up Bogusz with a left-footed cross just beyond Takaoka’s reach.
Coming in as the last unbeaten Western Conference team on the road, Vancouver had owned opponents on their own pitch, taking 10 of 12 points away from BC Place while conceding no more than one goal in any of those results.
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Since Vancouver beat LAFC at BMO Stadium last June, the Whitecaps compiled the best road record in MLS.
None of that previous success came to pass as LAFC (5-4-3, 18 points) maintained its unbeaten home record, improving to 5-0-2 at BMO Stadium, denying the Whitecaps (5-3-3, 18 points) a six-point edge in the standings with a game in hand.
