LAFC Outshot the Sounders 24-5 and Still Lost in Seattle

Seattle won 2-1 on Decision Day to claim a playoff spot; LAFC, already locked into sixth, opens against St. Louis CITY SC.

LAFC took 24 shots at the Seattle Sounders on Saturday and lost anyway. TheSportsDB's scores feed has the final at 2-1. The defeat left LAFC sixth in the Western Conference at 12-11-11 with 47 points, and it opens the playoffs against third-seeded St. Louis CITY SC in a best-of-three first-round series, the club said.

For Seattle the game was everything. The Sounders started Decision Day outside the playoff places, The Associated Press reported. The win, plus losses by the LA Galaxy and the Colorado Rapids, lifted them to eighth, according to the Sounders' own recap, which noted that LAFC's spot in sixth was settled whatever happened at Lumen Field. On Nov. 19, Real Salt Lake comes to Seattle for a single wild-card game, and the loser goes home.

Here's the number. LAFC outshot Seattle 24-5 and put eight on target to the Sounders' three, according to the club's postgame notes. What that count leaves out is where Seattle's two goals came from, and neither took much shooting.

The first came 51 seconds in. Seattle pressed high, LAFC coughed the ball up in its own penalty area, and Cristian Roldan picked it off and found Albert Rusnák, who knocked it in from right in front of goal. The AP called it the fourth-fastest goal in Decision Day history. The second, after about half an hour, came from Sebastian Gomez, a 20-year-old rookie, whose left-footed shot clipped LAFC defender Eddie Segura and wrong-footed goalkeeper Cabral Carter, a rookie making his second start.

After that it was Andrew Thomas against everybody. Seattle's goalkeeper made seven saves, and twice he stopped Son Heung-min from point-blank range, once in the first half and again early in the second, when he stuck out a leg. The Sounders said he came into the weekend with the third-best goals-minus-expected-goals mark in MLS. That's the stat that says a keeper is stopping shots he isn't supposed to, and he kept it up.

LAFC's goal finally came in the 82nd minute. Leo Walta sent a free kick toward the far post, Ryan Porteous headed it back across the six-yard box, and Segura beat Seattle's defenders to it for his first goal of the season. So the defender who deflected Seattle's second goal scored LAFC's only one, and the late push for an equalizer didn't get past Thomas.

One lopsided shot count can be bad luck. This was the seventh time this season LAFC had 20 or more shots in a game, and it's 1-4-2 in those games, the club's notes show. The 47 points are LAFC's second-fewest in eight full seasons, ahead of only the 2021 team that missed the playoffs with 45, and its 52 goals are the fewest. Since interim coach Xavi Tamarit took over on Oct. 1, LAFC has gone 1-2-3, scoring nine goals and allowing 10.

Next comes a two-week FIFA international break. The St. Louis series starts Nov. 20 or Nov. 21, the club said, and St. Louis holds home-field advantage, the AP reported, so LAFC hosts Game 2 at BMO Stadium the weekend of Nov. 27. The club said kickoff times would be announced Sunday. That leaves two weeks to work out how 24 shots turn into more than one goal.

Source: lafc.com, retrieved November 8, 2026. Other sources: abcnews.com, soundersfc.com.