LAFC and Club América will face each other this Saturday (31) at LA's BMO Stadium to play for the last available berth for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025. It follows Mexican outfit León, 2023 Concacaf Champions Cup winners, being disqualified because it belongs to the same ownership as Pachuca.
Therefore, FIFA arranged a single-elimination playoff between last year's runner-up, LAFC, and the top-performing Concacaf team in FIFA's rankings after 2024, as things stand now. Even though the match was hosted by LAFC in their stadium, the sport's global authority expects the most fair possible split for the audience viewing it. Its idea is not allocating half the spectatorship a clear advantage over the other half.
This will be a win-or-go-home contest. The victor moves on into Group D in the Club World Cup, where Flamengo, Chelsea, and Espérance await them. The loser is out of the most anticipated event in the 2025 calendar schedule.
Two competing approaches confront one another
To their credit, LAFC, a club with a solid project in Major League Soccer, constructed more recently, has also developed into one of the league's top challengers in the last couple of seasons under the charge of coach Steven Cherundolo. LAFC remain without a defeat in eight games, their sequence extending last weekend with a draw in a match at CF Montréal. LAFC last lost in April, when they were knocked out of the Concacaf Champions Cup in the quarterfinals by Inter Miami.
On the opposition are Club América, the most winning football club in the history of Mexican football with a solid, fighting core. Although losing last week in the Clausura final to Toluca, the team, under the guidance of the Brazilian coach Jardine, finished the league table in the second place with 10 wins, 4 losses, and 3 draws.
They have consistency in the general performance despite the final loss in recent times.
Tie in head-to-head record
The two sides have faced each other many times despite LAFC's recent inception as a team. Their most significant game as an official match was in 2020, in the semifinal of the Concacaf Champions Cup. América was leading 1-0 at half-time. Carlos Vela netted two goals in the first half of the second half to lead the turnaround for LAFC.
LAFC netted a third in injury time and advanced to the final in the last minute of the match. It was the initial time the club in California had beaten a major Mexican team in a knockout match. They have since met in friendlies since. They were 2-2 at SoFi Stadium in 2022, with América winning in a penalty shootout, and they met again a year later, with LAFC winning. Overall, the recent record has been fairly balanced, the Americans having a little edge in the more lopsided matches.