City and LAFC Share Points In 2-2 Draw

LOS ANGELES - It’s no secret that goals have been hard to come by for St. Louis City SC in 2025. Historically, they’ve been even harder to find against LAFC, who welcomed City to BMO Stadium just outside downtown Los Angeles on Sunday evening.

Coming into their fifth-ever meeting, St. Louis City had never won and never even scored a goal against LAFC. City found the back of the net, but couldn’t find their first win over LAFC. After a quiet first half, a four-goal second half saw the two sides play out a 2-2 draw.

The team tasked with scoring some goals was likely more focused on keeping Los Angeles off the scoresheet. Head coach Olof Mellberg stuck to his defense first, with three center backs, two wingbacks who sometimes joined the attack, two central midfielders, and three players in attack.

2025 regular Conrad Wallem started as a left wingback, Jannes Horn returned to the lineup as the left center back, Timo Baumgartl filled in for the injured Henry Kessler in the heart of the defense, Josh Yaro made another start as a right center back, and Kyle Hiebert started as the right wingback, keeping up his streak of starting every game for City in 2025.

Alfredo Morales and Tomas Ostrak started in central midfield, allowing Marcel Hartel to start further upfield in attack than he has in recent weeks. Hartel, like Hiebert, has started every single game for City this season.

Opposite of Hartel in attack was Cedric Teuchert, making a return to the starting lineup. João Klauss started up top as a striker and has seemingly taken over the starting striker role for the time being.

Those attacking players did not see much of the ball in the first half. City came out with a super-defensive structure, not wanting to give LAFC a chance to break them down on the counterattack or in the open field.

City’s lone shot in the first half came 40 minutes in, when Teuchert let rip from about 25 yards away from goal, forcing French legend Hugo Lloris into action for the first time on a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles.

It might not have been pretty, especially for the long stretches of play where St. Louis couldn’t escape their own half of the field, but thanks to a hyper-conservative approach and Ben Lundt’s face, the score remained 0-0 heading into the halftime break.

LAFC’s biggest chance came in the 33rd minute. Denis Bouanga found his way beyond the City backline and only had Lundt in the City goal to beat. Lundt lunged and stopped Bouanga’s chipped shot with his face.

The stats didn’t look good at halftime, with LAFC doing just about everything they wanted other than score a goal. The hosts in black and gold had 245 more passes than City, and despite City’s attempt to sit back and frustrate the home team, LAFC should have taken a lead into halftime.

“I think in total, we didn't play a good first half,” said Marcel Hartel, reflecting postgame. “We have too many ball losses after we won the ball. We gave the ball away too easily. We had some good moments where we were playing out of pressure when we won the ball and went to transition. But I think in the first half, we have only the moment from [Teuchert], where Lloris makes a good save, and that's it. So, the first half, in total, was not a good one.”

The real bad news of the first half was that Conrad Wallem, who’s become one of St. Louis City’s most dynamic players since his arrival on loan from Czech giants Slavia Prague, had to be subbed off with an eye contusion. Head coach Olof Mellberg said postgame that Wallem was dealing with blurred vision after taking an errant hand to the face.

In a half where City’s attempts to create offense simply weren’t clicking, losing Wallem felt like a death blow to the team’s hopes of finding the back of the net. Mellberg might have thought the same, and at the halftime break brought on Celio Pompeu for Tomas Ostrak, for Pompeu’s pace and skill on the left wing.

This saw the team shift into more of a 4-4-3 formation. Pompeu joined the attack, Marcel Hartel played a little more centrally, and Akil Watts stepped into a right midfield role where he, at times, dropped back in defense if needed.

With the direction to move forward into attacking areas, City found the breakthrough in the 51st minute. Jannes Horn found himself in plenty of space on the left wing as City countered and ran at the LAFC defense. Horn crossed a ball from the left to Tuechert, who was crashing into the box.

Tuechert played the cross with his right foot, bouncing the ball up to his chest where he coolly brought the ball down and slotted a left-footed shot beyond Hugo Lloris in the LA goal. Despite being down in just about every statistical category, St. Louis City found themselves with the game’s first goal, and their first-ever goal against LAFC.

“We came out for the second half totally differently,” Hartel explained postgame. “We played out with confidence, with courage. Our goal was a perfect example of what this team can do. We have a lot of quality. We can play out.”

The hosts were now chasing the game, and chasing a result after dictating play in the opening 45 minutes. France’s all-time leading goalscorer, Olivier Giroud, had a perfect opportunity to equalize in the 63rd minute, but couldn’t steer a bouncing shot into the far corner away from City keeper Ben Lundt.

The SoCal side’s offensive pressure eventually paid off, and City defenders who had been playing the majority of the match chasing LAFC attackers had a momentary lapse in doing so. Denis Bouanga latched onto a Cengiz Under cross after beating City defender Kyle Hiebert for pace, and poked home a short-range effort in the 70th minute to level the score at 1-1. Suddenly, LAFC had all the momentum back on their side.

Not even three minutes after the goal, Bouanga found himself running down the left flank into the City penalty area, where Josh Yaro rather clumsily tripped LAFC’s Gabonese star, and referee Jair Marrufo pointed to the penalty spot.

In his previous nine penalty attempts, Bouanga shot to the goalkeeper’s left. This attempt was no exception, and City keeper Ben Lundt knew exactly where Bouanga was shooting, and made a big diving save to keep City in the ballgame and keep the score 1-1 in the late stages.

“Every challenge is an opportunity,” Lundt mused postgame. “I think I had a pretty good idea of what [Bouanga] wanted to do. Alex Langer [and I], we do a lot of videos on the opponent before the games. So, I had a pretty good idea. We discussed the situation. We try, you know, to prepare for those kinds of situations, to help the team. And yeah, that's why I think I was prepared and knew his rhythm. He's not going to take a stutter-step. I knew he's going to just try to hit it hard into a corner. And I just went for what we discussed, and it worked out.”

Just as City were regaining a foothold in the second half, Alfredo Morales committed a silly foul on LA’s Jeremy Ebobisse in the 83rd minute to earn his second yellow card and his marching orders for the evening. Olof Mellberg’s team now had to play with ten men for the remainder of the game.

With ten men, however, City found more space and were still chasing all three points. LAFC were struggling to create with the extra attacker, and City had a hope of finding a result on the road.

Simon Becher, brought on for Joao Klauss, won a free kick in the 88th minute, on the right side about ten yards away from the LAFC box. Marcel Hartel swung in a cross that Becher got to first, creating chaos in the box as Hugo Lloris missed his attempted clearing punch.

Joakim Nilsson, another second-half sub, crashed into the six-yard box and fired a shot that was blocked off the goalline by LA defender Nkosi Tafari. After being blocked by Tafari, the ball bounced off the back of the head of LAFC’s Nathan Ordaz and into a goal filled with players of both teams.

VAR took a look at the play, but deemed no wrongdoing, and in the 89th minute, St. Louis City had an improbable 2-1 lead down to ten men on the West Coast. All they had to do was hang on for stoppage time.

In the 95th minute, Bouanga picked up the ball on the left wing and simply bullied his way by Josh Yaro with a mix of strength and speed. City didn’t have defenders back on the play, transitioning from an attempted attack of their own, and Bouanga just needed to keep his composure.

He cut back onto his right foot in the box, forcing retreating City defenders to collapse upon him, but found the space between three City defenders to rifle a right-footed shot into the top far corner. Ben Lundt could do nothing to stop the shot.

BMO Stadium erupted, their hero once again coming up with a moment of brilliance that showcased why Denis Bouanga is one of the most recognized names in Major League Soccer. Bouanga’s two second half goals erased two City leads and turned an improbable City win into a last-second salvaged draw for LAFC at home.

Ben Lundt, who had stopped Bouanga twice already and made seven saves in total, sat in his six-yard box in disbelief, not being able to add an eighth save. Lundt did all he could do over 90 minutes to keep LAFC’s star man at bay, and saw three points turn into one without doing anything wrong.

“It's brutal,” Lundt admitted. “[We’re] up 2-1 in the last two minutes of the game. Of course, you want to win. There's no question about that. We all feel very disappointed. It feels like a loss now.”

2-2 felt tough and unfair in the moment for a City team that was moments away from a massive road win. But given the run of play over 90 minutes, a draw on the road against a dangerous attacking team is probably a fair result for Olof Mellberg’s men.

“We were fighting, fighting very hard,” said Mellberg following the draw. “We were defending really well in the first half, but struggled on the ball, which made us defend for a longer period of time, and we did that extremely well. We built on last week's performance and continued that. So proud of the boys and the hard work they put in today.”

Now St. Louis City, having picked up points in their previous two games against tough opposition, look to keep the streak alive on the road in Seattle against the Sounders this Saturday.

“We have a lot of confidence, we played against a very good opponent,” Marcel Hartel explained. “LAFC is a very good team and we were so close to getting three points away from home, which is tough. Especially the second half, we have a lot of positive things where we can analyze and can take over to the next game in Seattle.”

“We've got to continue with this fighting spirit, the will to win,” said Mellberg. “They’re putting in a great effort out there, the boys, and have done so far for the whole season. They’ve got to really keep that going. And try to improve on the ball, and hopefully we will start winning games.”

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