LAFC will host the Colorado Rapids on Wednesday looking to steady a week that brought both a Champions Cup breakthrough and a bruising league setback. LAFC advanced to the CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinals last Tuesday, then fell 4-1 at home to the San Jose Earthquakes on Sunday.
Marc Dos Santos did not hide his view of the defeat. He said the loss was not good and that LAFC have to improve on Wednesday, adding that blaming fatigue from the Cup run would be an excuse. The result also ended Hugo Lloris’s 593-minute scoreless streak, with the goalkeeper conceding his first goals of the season.
LAFC entered the match at 5-2-1 with 16 points, and their attack still carries plenty of weight. Denis Bouanga leads the club with four goals and four assists in MLS play, while Heung-Min Son has seven assists in league games and two goals in Champions Cup play, but no goals through his first seven league matches.
Colorado arrives at 4-4-0 with 12 points after a 3-2 home loss to Inter Miami on Saturday, a game in which Lionel Messi scored twice. The Rapids had 15 shots to Miami’s five, a reminder that the performance was more competitive than the score line suggested.
Matt Wells said he saw a team that played like a big club with the right mentality and a huge personality, and he said that gives him hope if Colorado keeps building. That optimism comes with real numbers behind it: the Rapids have scored 21 league goals, second most in MLS and one behind the Western Conference-leading Vancouver Whitecaps, but they have also allowed 15 goals, with only three Western Conference teams giving up more.
Rafael Navarro leads Colorado with six goals and four assists and scored in the Miami loss. The Rapids also beat the Houston Dynamo 6-2 one week earlier, showing how quickly their form can swing from one extreme to another.
The teams meet with different pressure points but the same immediate task: LAFC need a response after Sunday’s collapse, and Colorado need a result that matches the bite of an attack that has already made them one of the league’s most dangerous sides. Their matchup adds another layer to colorado vs lafc, with one club trying to reset and the other trying to prove its scoring can travel.
The Colorado-Miami game was played before 75,824 fans at the home of the NFL’s Denver Broncos, the second-largest crowd to watch an MLS match in history. That kind of stage has already followed Colorado this season, and Wednesday gives them another chance to show they belong in it.
