Report and Reaction: Whitecaps go down to first road loss of the season as Bouanga and Olivera run riot for LAFC

Vancouver Whitecaps unbeaten start to the season on the road came to a crashing halt in Los Angeles on Saturday night. A first half double by Cristian Olivera and a hat-trick of assists by Denis Bouanga put the Whitecaps to the sword. Mateusz Bogusz put the final knife in, adding a third just before the hour mark, as an out-of-sorts Vancouver side simply failed to offer anything creatively and made it back-to-back league matches now without a goal.

Vanni Sartini was forced into a change in his midfield, with Sam Adekugbe ruled out after his midweek calf injury and replaced by Ryan Raposo.

The home side started on the front foot and forced a few early saves out of Yohei Takaoka.

The ‘Caps keeper got down well to keep out a deflected Olivera shot in the 6th minute and denied the Uruguayan again with a more straightforward save four minutes later.

Takaoka turned Mateusz Bogusz’s near post effort round the post in the 12th minute before Hugo Lloris was called into action for the first time, turning away a fierce Fafa Picault shot, after Tristan Blackmon’s low pass had run through to the Haitian.

Takaoka was forced to make another save moments later as Timothy Tillman played in Denis Bouanga, but the usual ‘Cap killer didn’t get a lot of power onto his shot.

LA’s pressure finally paid off in the 20th minute when Bouanga sent in a lovely ball from the left for Olivera to tuck away. It looked borderline offside, but with no lines to be drawn, there was no conclusive angle to overturn the on-pitch decision.

Bouanga —> Olivera to give @LAFC the early lead. 👌

📺 #MLSSeasonPass on @AppleTV: https://t.co/yfXJuvrkB9 pic.twitter.com/NSRe3yS2kw

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 12, 2024

It already felt an uphill task for the Whitecaps to get themselves back into this one, despite their good away form this season.

And that hill became a mountain when Olivera grabbed his second of the game in the 36th minute, finishing off another Bouanga pass across goal from close range.

Bouanga to Olivera AGAIN! 🙌

This duo is cooking. 🧑‍🍳 pic.twitter.com/FYRaEacwlm

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 12, 2024

LA came close to adding a third deep in first half stoppage time on a quick breakaway. Bogusz was sent clear, rounded Takaoka, and went down in the box. Referee Ted Unkel saw a dive and booked Bogusz.

As the second half got underway, the next goal was crucial as to whether this was going to be a contest or not. The problem the Whitecaps had was that their first half performance didn’t instill much confidence that they could get it, with quality and creativity severely lacking.

Bogusz had the first chance of the half in the 50th minute when the ball came to him in front of goal from a corner, but the Pole didn’t connect properly.

That wasn’t an issue in the 57th minute when Bouanga sent in another dangerous cross from the left, Takaoka couldn’t get to it and it fell to Bogusz, who made no mistake this time.

3-0 LAFC and a hat-trick of assists for Bouanga.

Denis Bouanga's 3rd assist of the night goes to
Mateusz Bogusz. 😮‍💨

📺 #MLSSeasonPass on @AppleTV: https://t.co/yfXJuvrkB9 pic.twitter.com/x6AvBUdzXN

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 12, 2024

Both sides huffed and puffed for the remainder of the match, without really threatening to add to their lead or spark a comeback and another tricky day at the office for Vancouver in LA came to an end.

Vancouver never looked at the races in this one and got exactly what they deserved. If anything, they were lucky to come away with just a three goal defeat. Something just isn’t clicking with the team right now. They look very field in the middle of the park and are struggling to create. Although they’re still sitting in 4th place in the standings, they are also just two points off 9th, as the West tightens up considerably. With two two matches coming up this week in Colorado and Seattle, they need to find their spark again, and quickly, to avoid undoing the good work they did to start of their season.

FINAL SCORE: Los Angeles FC 3 – 0 Vancouver Whitecaps

ATT: 22,099

STATS:
Possession: LAFC 57.4% – VAN 42.6%
Shots: LAFC 14 – VAN 16
Shots on Goal: LAFC 8 – VAN 4
Saves: LAFC 4 – VAN 5
Fouls: LAFC 17 – VAN 7
Offsides: LAFC 0 – VAN 1
Corners: LAFC 4 – VAN 5

SCORING SUMMARY:
18’ – LAFC – Cristian Olivera (Denis Bouanga)
36’ – LAFC – Cristian Olivera (Denis Bouanga)
57’ – LAFC – Mateusz Bogusz (Denis Bouanga)

BOOKINGS:
21’ – VAN – Brian White
45’+2 – LAFC – Mateusz Bogusz

LOS ANGELES: Hugo Lloris; Sergi Palencia (Eddie Segura 79’), Maxime Chanot, Aaron Long, Omar Campos; Timothy Tillman (Érik Dueñas 68’), Ilie Sánchez (Kei Kamara 79’), Eduard Atuesta; Cristian Olivera (Luis Muller 87’), Mateusz Bogusz (Jesús Murillo 87’), Denis Bouanga [Substitutes not used: Abraham Romero, Tomás Ángel, Nathan Ordaz]

VANCOUVER: Yohei Takaoka; Mathías Laborda, Ranko Veselinović, Tristan Blackmon; Ryan Raposo (Luís Martins 68’), Alessandro Schöpf (Pedro Vite 62’), Andrés Cubas, Ali Ahmed (Javain Brown 69’); Ryan Gauld, Brian White (Sebastian Berhalter 80’), Fafà Picault (28.Levonte Johnson 62’) [Substitutes not used: Isaac Boehmer, Ralph Priso, Bjørn Inge Utvik, Giuseppe Bovalina]

REACTION:

VANCOUVER WHITECAPS

VANNI SARTINI

On his team’s first-half performance:

“We played a bad game and it was, to be honest, our first game under our standards of the season. But we didn’t play very well and deservedly so, we lost. In the first half, I think the first 20 minutes, I don’t know why we were unable to get out with the ball, we were a little bit overwhelmed. We were always playing this long ball even if there was a lot of situations to play in the middle and we were unable to serve our midfielders. So we were playing a lot of longball and we were losing all the battles to the second ball, so they were running at us and they were very dangerous with that and basically the first goal happened in a situation like this.”

On the loss overall:

“It was the kind of day that, when things aren’t going well, everything goes not well, so all the headers went out, the shots went out, the Levonte [Johnson] one-v-one and he loses the one-v-one, so that’s it. But it was, in Italian we say, ‘the frittata was already done’, you know? Like, the egg was already broken because the first half wasn’t good. I think the first half was really bad and unfortunately we lost, so we need to now take this as a learning moment to be better for the future, and luckily, we have a game in three days so we can bounce back immediately without being too much down or being too frustrated because we need to be ready.”

RYAN GAULD

On why his team lost on the night:

“I think we were just beat by the better team on the night. That’s as simple as it gets. We didn’t start off well, they were beating us to every second ball they could. They could have even got a couple more goals in the first half. It was a disappointing performance and I would say it was a good wake-up call for us that things have been going well but we still need to work on a lot of stuff to make sure we’re going to be up there at the end of the year.”

On how the team will look to bounce back:

“When you get beat the way we did tonight, you want to get back out into a game as soon as possible and we’ve got a tough one on Wednesday [against Colorado]. We’ve got the chance to try and turn things around straight away and we don’t have a long week of training to dwell on tonight’s result. We’ve got a game to focus on already on Wednesday and make sure that we’re good to go.”