Wednesday’s win over Austin FC could be the last time Steve Cherundolo coached the Los Angeles Football Club on Christmas Tree Lane.
That wasn’t a scenario the 46-year-old American contemplated before it hit him the morning leading up to his club’s 2-1 Game 1 victory in the MLS Cup playoffs first-round series.
“I’m not good at reflecting on my own personal situation,” he acknowledged. “I’ll work on it.”
Should Cherundolo’s team sweep Austin on Sunday in Texas, that would remove the need for a do-or-die Game 3 back at BMO Stadium and the popular tailgating area with the yuletide nickname. It would also prompt a three-week break between playoff games until the conference semifinals take place the weekend before Thanksgiving.
After revealing in April that 2025 would be his fourth and final season leading LAFC on the field, that deadline will manifest whenever his team’s pursuit of the MLS Cup comes to a close.
For two of Cherundolo’s previous three seasons, that meant a trip to the league championship.
LAFC won the Supporters’ Shield and had a clean route to winning the Cup with a trio of knockout games at home in 2022. The following year, as a three seed, they swept Vancouver and won in Seattle. Because conference winner St. Louis was eliminated on the other side of the bracket, Cherundolo’s team hosted the conference final and earned the right to compete for the MLS Cup in Columbus, which it lost.
This time around, LAFC’s pursuit of a third trip to the league final in four seasons requires getting it done on the road unless upsets shake things up.
Whether or not Cherundolo patrols the sidelines at BMO Stadium again (presuming LAFC wins this weekend) will be determined by higher seeds San Diego and Vancouver.
Cherundolo, a U.S. men’s national team World Cup veteran who played at right-back his entire career, understandably prefers home games, but “there’s something for me, being an ex-defender, really fun about winning away,” he said, “so I love it.
“We haven’t had the experience to raise a trophy away from home and we had a few opportunities. That would be amazing.”
That said, the one possibility worth dwelling on at the moment is eliminating sixth-seeded Austin, which shut out LAFC twice in the regular season thanks to a pair of 1-0 results.
Seeking a similar outcome in Game 1, Austin head coach Nico Estévez tasked his players with holding the ball for long spells of possession in an attempt to limit LAFC counterattacks.
Austin also set a physical tone, to which LAFC quickly adapted.
“It’s the playoffs so everyone is fighting for their lives,” LAFC midfielder Timothy Tillman said. “That shows in the physical play. We will have to be ready for that in the second game as well. They will play with a lot of confidence in front of their home crowd. They will want to have a good fight, have a good game. And we need to be ready for that.”
Though Austin did nothing offensively in the first half a few days ago (zero shots or shots on target, punctuated by a 0.0 xG), an adjustment by Estévez and his staff at halftime pushed more men forward into the box, eventually causing enough chaos versus LAFC’s stingy center-back trio for the lowest-scoring team in the postseason get on the board.
Fine tuning those tweaks means balancing a conservative approach with putting the ball in the net. Hanging over their heads? The risk of getting exposed by Denis Bouanga, Son Heung-min and their LAFC teammates.
At home or away, this is likely where the series will be decided.
LAFC AT AUSTIN FC
When: 5:45 p.m. PT Sunday
Where: Q2 Stadium, Austin, Texas
TV/Radio: Apple TV (MLS Season Pass), FS1, FOX Deportes/710 AM, 980 AM, 1230 AM