Seventy-nine goals, and a mark that had stood since Vela
Denis Bouanga arrived at the far post in the 53rd minute at Levi’s Stadium, took Son Heung-Min’s pass and finished. Goal number 79 in MLS regular-season play for LAFC. Carlos Vela, the club’s first Designated Player and the 2019 MVP and Golden Boot winner, scored 78 of them in 152 appearances. Bouanga has needed 127.
The Gabonese forward now stands alone at the top of that list. Widen the frame and the number gets stranger still: since the start of the 2023 season he has 78 regular-season goals, nine clear of Lionel Messi over the same span. Saturday’s finish was his 14th in MLS this year and his 21st across all competitions.
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Fifty-four minutes with ten men
The record arrived in a match LAFC spent mostly a man short. Son had opened the scoring in the 34th minute, collecting a Mark Delgado pass near the centre circle, driving at goal and bending a low left-footed shot from 25 yards inside Angus Gunn’s post. Two minutes later captain Aaron Long was sent off for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity inside his own area.
Marc Dos Santos withdrew Armindo Sieb for centre back Nkosi Tafari, and LAFC still produced the goal-line-to-goal-line counterattack that ended with Bouanga’s record. Hugo Lloris then spent half an hour keeping the lead intact, saving a free header from Preston Judd in the 80th minute, denying Timo Werner seconds later, and parrying a Jack Skahan header in the 86th.
Judd had already pulled one back in the 70th, heading in a Werner cross from the right flank. The equaliser needed the eighth and final minute of stoppage time: San Jose centre back Reid Roberts, 30 yards out, low and left-footed, inside the post past a diving Lloris.
What the point is actually worth
LAFC leave Santa Clara on 41 points from 27 matches, 11 wins, eight defeats and eight draws, still inside the Western Conference top six. Son’s assist was his 13th of the regular season, level with Messi at the top of the league. FC Dallas away in Frisco comes next, on 26 September.
A point after 54 minutes with ten men is not a disaster. Losing two of them in the 98th is harder to put away.
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