LAFC hopes to beat Whitecaps in MLS Cup playoffs – Daily News

Baseball may not mean much in Rochdale, England, but Lewis O’Brien didn’t need to watch America’s pastime to understand how much winning the World Series meant to Dodgers fans.

“The atmosphere around this place has changed completely since the championship,” said the 26-year-old midfielder, who arrived in Los Angeles this summer on loan from Nottingham Forest. “It’s always nice to win, both for the communities and for your personal team. Hopefully we can bring some of that energy from this week and carry it over into Sunday’s game.”

Training ahead of Game 2 of the best-of-three MLS Cup first-round playoff series against Vancouver Whitecaps, while Dodgers celebrated with nearly 300,000 fans on Friday, O’Brien’s Los Angeles FC teammates and coaches haven’t yet considered riding the double-decker bus themselves.

“This is an amazing feat. Congratulations to the Dodgers and Peter Guber, who are also part of our LAFC family,” said head coach Steve Cherundolo, whose 2022 MLS Cup debut ended with a quick tour of the Christmas Tree greeted by 5,000 fans at Exposition Park. .

“It’s great to see the people of Los Angeles happy and proud of their team,” Cherundolo added. “We’d like to give them the same thing in a couple of weeks, but we try not to think about it too much. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’re in the first round of the playoffs, so we still have a lot to do until any ceremony takes place. We will focus on the next challenge – playing in difficult conditions in Vancouver.”

If health and deep bench mobilization are advantages in the postseason (both of which were vital in ’22), then LAFC is in a great position as they face the Whitecaps for the 11th time in two years.

“You can expect a full 90 minutes,” Cherundolo said, explaining that this is the second time in 2024 that he will have to deploy a full squad. “You can have all sorts of options: you can start very offensively and go defensive to finish the game, or conversely, start conservatively and end offensively. Or you make a mix.”

According to O’Brien, repeatedly defeating a familiar opponent creates a number of problems since neither side changes its personality and players can learn enough about each other to reach a stalemate. Having started a dozen games in a row in midfield for LAFC since late August, the Englishman has already played against Vancouver three times.

“There are always little things that you can pick up in games and little things that we looked at on video and tried to change for the next game,” he said.

After beating Whitecaps 2-1 at BMO Stadium. last weekendLAFC is poised to beat the Canadians for the second straight postseason on the artificial turf at BC Place, where they are 3-0-1 in all competitions over the past two years.

During LAFC’s final road game of the regular season in Vancouver on October 13, striker Mateusz Bogusz scored with 32 seconds remaining and played a decisive role in Ilie Sánchez’s 93rd-minute winner.

If LAFC avoids an elimination game at BMO Stadium next Friday, it will be eight wins in a row, starting with US Open Cup in late September.