For a second successive season, Los Angeles FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps will meet in the opening round of the MLS Cup playoffs, with game one of that best-of-three series taking place on Sunday at BMO Stadium.

In the wild-card round on Wednesday, the Caps thumped the Portland Timbers 5-0 to advance to this stage, while the Black and Gold ended the regular season with a 3-1 win over the San Jose Earthquakes, finishing first in the Western Conference.

Los Angeles took care of business down the stretch of the 2024 regular season, winning their final six matches across all competitions. That enabled them to edge out the Los Angeles Galaxy for first on goal difference, the second time in the last three seasons that they finished as the top team in their conference. Steve Cherundolo guided them to their third-best season in terms of points this year (64), behind only his MLS Cup-winning team in 2022 (67) and the 2019 side, which won the Supporters' Shield (72 points).

The Black and Gold are unbeaten in their last four competitive home fixtures, winning five successive playoff games at BMO Stadium. Their victory on Decision Day against the Quakes was the first time domestically this year that they had won an MLS match after conceding the opener, with the Black and Gold collecting seven points during the regular season when doing so.

Los Angeles FC won both regular season matches against the Whitecaps this year, including a 3-0 triumph at BMO Stadium back in May.

Faced with a must-win situation on Wednesday, the Caps came through in a big way, winning a post-season fixture for only the second time since coming to MLS. That ended their four-match losing run in this competition, with this team failing to win seven consecutive league fixtures before then. While they were listed as the home team, the match occurred at Providence Park and was the first time this team had won an MLS playoff encounter away from BC Place Stadium.

Vanni Sartini's men have not won a match in California in normal time since March, when they defeated the San Jose Earthquakes 2-0 at PayPal Park. Vancouver have not won consecutive games since July, which was also the last time they won back-to-back MLS encounters away from home. While the Whitecaps have not beaten LAFC in normal time at BMO Stadium since June 2023 (3-2), they managed to claim a shootout victory against them during the Leagues Cup this past summer.

LAFC’s Dominance

In their final encounter of the regular season, LA were missing Jesus Murillo with a sore knee, Lorenzo Dellavalle was sidelined due to a torn ACL and David Martinez came on as a substitute after previously sustaining a minor knock. Cherundolo made two changes to his starting 11 last weekend as Maxime Chanot and Denis Bouanga came into the lineup in place of Marlon and Martinez. Bouanga netted the equaliser against the Goonies, with Eduard Atuesta and Marlon also finding the back of the net, while Hugo Lloris made four stops, ending the domestic campaign three shy of 100, the second-most saves in a single season for this club.

On Wednesday, the Caps' Jeevan Badwal was unavailable because of a knee injury, while Levonte Johnson featured from the bench despite a knock. Only four players that were in the starting 11 versus Real Salt Lake began their wild-card showdown against the Timbers, including Ranko Veselinovic, Tristan Blackmon, Fafa Picault and Brian White. A hat trick by captain Ryan Gauld was more than enough to see off Portland in midweek, with White and Stuart Armstrong also finding the back of the net and Yohei Takaoka making four stops for the clean sheet.

Los Angeles FC possible starting lineup: Lloris; Long, Chanot, Segura; Hollingshead, Tillman, O'Brien, Campos; Bogusz, Giroud, Bouanga

Vancouver Whitecaps possible starting lineup: Takaoka; Utvik, Vevelinovic, Blackmon; Laborda, Cubas, Armstrong, Adekugbe; Picault, White, Gauld

The Underdog

The Black and Gold have been in so many of these big games and found a way through, and there is no reason to believe that will change this weekend. As brilliant as the Caps were in the attacking third on Wednesday, penetrating the LAFC backline may prove to be a much tougher chore, and their opponents rarely need more than a half-chance or two to win, which is why we are tipping the home team to emerge victorious.

Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats, suggests the most likely outcome of this match is a Los Angeles FC win with a probability of 70.08%. A draw has a probability of 16.7% and a win for Vancouver Whitecaps has a probability of 13.2%.

The most likely scoreline for a Los Angeles FC win is 2-1 with a probability of 9.39%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome are 2-0 (9.24%) and 3-1 (7.9%). The likeliest drawn scoreline is 1-1 (7.44%), while for a Vancouver Whitecaps win it is 1-2 (3.78%).

It’s a Class War

The reason for this random history lesson? It lies with the Vancouver Whitecaps and their modern-day Roman coach, Vanni Sartini. Item No. 1, familiarity: The Whitecaps are prepping to face Los Angeles FC in Round 1 of the Major League Soccer playoffs, starting Sunday at BMO Stadium. The Caps have played LAFC more than any other team in the past two years, with Sunday being the 10th meeting across regular-season, playoffs, Champions League and League’s Cup. And it was LAFC who bounced Vancouver from the post-season last year in a contentious two-game result in their best-of-three series, which leads to Item No. 2: The arse.

The final minutes of that game saw Sartini lose his mind over the standard of officiating — including referee Tim Ford’s bodycheck of Alessandro Schopf in the dying seconds — and getting a red card for his objections. That one-game automatic suspension became even longer, in addition to a fine, after he sounded off on Ford in the presser, using words like “shameful” and joking that if the referee was found floating in False Creek, the police would probably question him first. He served his suspension, including a mandatory counselling assessment, and admitted he was The Ass, issued several mea culpas, and yet in the dying moments of their July meeting with LAFC in the Leagues Cup he was red-carded again. In their penultimate regular-season game, a 2-1 loss where LAFC scored in both the first and 93rd minute, Sartini was shown a yellow card and subsequently suspended for the season finale.

So what is it about playing LAFC that pushes the passionate coach past the redline?

“It’s not about the team. It’s about previous circumstances that happened,” he said. “It’s probably subconscious because they’re the big guys, and I am a big social class, socialist person. I (see) the game as a class war, sometimes, against them.

“I went through that with my psychologist, actually,” he said. “We don’t have to regret and blame myself for the thing that made a mistake, but try to understand why, and hopefully we understood why, and I will be ready to win … at least this internal battle, and not getting a card.”

So it’s U.S. versus Canada, capitalism versus socialism?

“I don’t know if the Whitecaps are happy if I identify them with socialism, so let’s stick to Canada versus U.S.,” he said with a laugh.

LAFC are one of the juggernauts of MLS, both financially and on the pitch. In their first six years of existences, they’ve won two Supporters’ Shields and two MLS Cups, been runners-up twice in the Concacaf Champions League, and had three Golden Boot winners. Their 2024 payroll (US$22.09 million), according to the MLS salary guide released Thursday, is third highest in the league, trailing only Inter Miami ($47.7 million) and Toronto ($31.8 million). They have signed globally recognized players, including France international Oliver Giroud ($3.7 million), who’s getting paid just a touch more than their other French forward, Denis Bounga ($3.6 million).

In their 13-year history, the Whitecaps have won two knockout round playoff games, and never a series. They do have Golden Boot winner in their history, and this year the acquisition of Stuart Armstrong and his $2.9 million salary bumped them into 12th place out of MLS teams roster spend. But they are far short of the darling of Hollywood.

“We are the underdogs because they’re the No. 1 team in the league,” said Sartini. “I’m more of a cat person, so I like to be the undercat. I hope that we will win the game being the undercat.

“LAFC is the top team of the league. They are a powerhouse. They signed the World Cup winners. They have big DPs. It’s a team that we need to respect, but at the same time, it’s a team that we beat in the past.”

The standings show it’s the No. 1 West seed versus a No. 8 that only made the playoffs as a Wild Card team. And in their past 10 meetings across all competitions, LAFC holds a 7-1-2 record. But a deeper look at their games shows the gap between the clubs isn’t an insurmountable one.

A team of depth players went toe-to-toe with LAFC two weeks ago at B.C. Place, fighting back from a first-minute goal to pull even, then losing on an injury-time post-pinging golazo from defensive midfielder Ilie Sánchez — his first of the season and just his third in three years for LA. In their Round 1 series against LA last year, they went down twice in the first half to tie it both times, before three defensive miscues on set plays cost them in the second half. And the 1-0 loss in Game 2 has already been well examined. The July 30 Leagues Cup meeting at BMO Stadium saw the game end in regulation, with the Caps prevailing in penalty kicks — the same manner the first-round series games will be decided if tied after regulation.

“We made a lot of good performances against them, so we just need to learn about those. The performances where we did our best was because we weren’t scared of them,” said Sartini. “We went at them, but at the same time, we went at them with the humility. So that’s what we’ll have to do on Sunday. We know that we need to win at least once away if we want to (advance).”

“We need to be good in every moment, every set play, every transition moment. That’s the only way for us to try to win this game, but the spirit needs to be exactly the same. The spirit needs to be to try to go there and be in their face.”

The Whitecaps had a light practice Friday, with spirits high knowing that if they hadn’t performed well on Wednesday night, they wouldn’t have been practising at all. Their 5-0 demolition of the Portland Timbers in the Wild Card game banished the self-doubts and poor results that saw them lose four straight coming into the post-season. The 3-0 lead they jumped to in an 11-minute first-half explosion in the first half at Providence Park emptied out the stadium of Timbers fans, and allowed the Caps to empty their bench in the second half, giving their key players like Armstrong, Ryan Gauld, Fafa Picault, Andres Cubas and Brian White extra time to rest.

“We are back where we belong. And I think we need to aspire to be where we wanted to belong, and we were very close to for 80 per cent of the season, the top four,” said Sartini. “So we need to make this last step to get on the table where we’d like to be: playing after the international break at the end of November.”

Sunday, Oct. 27: Whitecaps at LAFC, 6:45 p.m.  (FS1, free on Apple TV).

Sunday, Nov. 3: LAFC at Whitecaps, 5:45 p.m.  (MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, FS1)

*Friday, Nov. 8: Whitecaps at LAFC, 8 p.m.  (MLS Season Pass on Apple TV)

*If necessary.