Right now, the player the Los Angeles Football Club coaching staff puts down first on the team sheet isn’t a name you’re likely to think of for your top five guesses.
Denis Bouanga. Mateusz Bogusz. Hugo Lloris. Timothy Tillman …
Sergi Palencia?
“Probably the first name on the sheet for us,” LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo said.
Since entering the LAFC starting lineup on matchday five versus Nashville, the 28-year-old Spanish right back has been a fixture on the field, doing his part while Cherundolo’s team left a slow start behind them.
With Wednesday’s 1-1 draw in Austin, LAFC improved to 11-2-3 in all competitions when Palencia started, a run that has elevated the Black & Gold up the MLS Western Conference standings and into the Supporters’ Shield conversation.
“He has made a difference, but you never win games because of one player,” said Cherundolo, himself a retired right back. “It’s always a collective effort, but he has a very positive impact on our team.
“His intensity, his seriousness, his way of playing in a responsible way with and and without the ball has been contagious for this group in every positive sense of the word.”
When attack-minded Ryan Hollingshead or Omar Campos operate as the fullback on the other side of the field, Palencia brings a balance that suits the way LAFC wants to play. That has correlated well with the team’s consistency.
“What I always try to give is competitiveness,” said Palencia, who joined LAFC in 2023. “I try to compete in every aspect of the game. I really don’t care about my individual performance, I would say. I care about what the team needs.”
Tillman, who has started each of the club’s 18 regular-season games in the midfield so far, said Palencia “will always give you his best, and, yeah, I love him.”
A product of the Barcelona system, where he learned and played the game from 2006 to 2018 before moving to France and the U.S., Palencia is “one of the best pros and trainers I’ve ever seen,” Cherundolo said. “He brings that every day in training. It’s been very important for this group and he has shown up at every game we’ve played him and that’s why we’re going to keep playing him.”
Capable of retaining a lot of information and applying it in real-time situations, Palencia has clarified LAFC’s game from back to front, making it simple for him and the attackers.
“I try always to make good decisions for the team and I think that is working,” Palencia said. “All of us, we kind of have this mentality and that’s why the team is working. We’re working for each other. We’re fighting for each other, as the family that we are. This is one of the best locker rooms I’ve ever been.”
Like midfielder Ilie Sanchez and others, Palencia serves as “an extended arm of the coaching staff on the field,” Cherundolo said.
Saturday’s contest at BMO Stadium versus the San Jose Earthquakes presents LAFC a chance to avenge one of its two losses while Palencia has started.
A 3-1 defeat at Levi’s Stadium on May 4 constitutes the last time LAFC dropped three points prior to going unbeaten in a club-record nine games.
The Earthquakes (3-13-2) visit with the fewest points in MLS, just 11 after 18 games, losers in five of their last six. They can score but can’t stop anyone, enduring an MLS-worst -18 goal differential after conceding 45 times already.
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A stout LAFC (10-4-4, 34 points), meanwhile, has allowed a conference-low 21 goals.
“The table is not saying that they are a very good team, but when we play against them they always make things difficult for us,” Palencia said. “And we are very focused to face that team of San Jose.”
SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES AT LAFC
When: 7:39 p.m. Saturday
Where: BMO Stadium
TV/radio: Apple TV (MLS Season Pass(/710 AM, 980 AM