LAFC Couldn't Beat 10-Man Vancouver After a Seventh-Minute Red Card

Denis Bouanga's 15th goal canceled Oliver Larraz's opener, and LAFC is now winless in four straight MLS matches.

LAFC and the Vancouver Whitecaps tied 1-1 Saturday night at BMO Stadium, and Vancouver played all but the first seven minutes with 10 men.

The draw leaves LAFC at 11-9-9 and without a win in four straight matches, two of them losses, The Associated Press reported. Vancouver (15-7-6) sits first in the Western Conference with 51 points, second in MLS behind Nashville's 63, and TSN's headline on the AP report said the point clinched the Whitecaps a playoff spot. The final score is from TheSportsDB's data feed.

The Whitecaps' Tristan Blackmon was sent off with a straight red seven minutes in, according to the AP. From there, LAFC couldn't turn more than 80 minutes of regulation with an extra man into a win.

The number that explains it is three. That's how many saves Vancouver goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka made, per the AP. Saves only count shots on target that didn't go in, so the figure misses everything LAFC sent wide or into a defender's shins. What it does say is that a short-handed back line rarely made its keeper work.

Worse for LAFC, the 10 men scored first. In the 43rd minute, Édier Ocampo lofted a ball in from the right, Oliver Larraz headed it at the near post, and Hugo Lloris dove to push it away. Larraz hit the rebound first time into the top of the net.

It was the 25-year-old midfielder's first goal since 2024 and only the second of his four-plus MLS seasons, the AP noted. LAFC's defense, with a numbers edge, got beaten by a player who'd scored once in MLS before Saturday.

Denis Bouanga fixed that in the 46th minute, heading in a cross from Sergi Palencia for his 15th goal of the season. The 31-year-old forward has scored in three straight games and has now reached 15 goals in each of the last four seasons, according to the AP.

That's the one part of LAFC that keeps arriving on schedule. It also left the rest of the second half, plus stoppage time, to find a winner against 10 men, and the scoreline never moved again.

LAFC's next shot at ending the skid comes Wednesday at home against Austin. Vancouver, playoff place in hand, visits St. Louis the same night.

Source: sports.yahoo.com, retrieved October 11, 2026. Other sources: tsn.ca.