LAFC prepares for a Whitecaps team missing its top player in Leagues Cup match

The return of Leagues Cup offers Major League Soccer clubs chances to compete against opponents they know well and those they don’t.

Following a comfortable group stage victory over Club Tijuana, the Los Angeles Football Club turns its attention from a team they had not played before to the very familiar Vancouver Whitecaps.

Ahead of their eighth meeting since April of last year, LAFC has taken the lion’s share of results versus Vancouver, going 5-1-1 including series sweeps in CONCACAF Champions League and the MLS Cup playoffs.

Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini called LAFC the best team in CONCACAF last year, which came up just shy of being true due to the unsuccessful Champions League final against Liga MX’s Leon.

When LAFC dispatched the Whitecaps 3-0 in their first regular season meeting at BMO Stadium this spring, the effervescent Italian coach somehow turned up the volume on his praise after Denis Bouanga nabbed three assists, two to Cristian Olivera and another to Mateusz Bogusz.

“I thought it was probably our worst performance of the year,” Sartini said. “The idea is that we’ve been a little bit naive and maybe presumptuous in the game, trying to be the team that was having the ball more and trying to overplay some situations. And we know you cannot do it against them because they are probably the best team in transition in the league, for sure, but I want to say even in the world.”

LAFC was hyperbolically good while running behind Tijuana’s lines on Friday, unleashing Bouanga and Olivera on a man-marking foe who couldn’t cope with the Black & Gold’s pace or determination to score.

Sartini fully understands the price opponents pay when LAFC is on.

In order to depart L.A. with at least a point before wrapping up the group stage at home against Tijuana, Sartini said his side must limit space without concentrating on a particular attacker in their zone-marking scheme.

The Whitecaps will need to find a way to do that without their best player, All-Star midfielder Ryan Gauld, whose knee was injured during Vancouver’s last competitive match on July 20.

With 18 goal contributions in 24 regular season starts this year, Gauld’s ability to win balls and sniff out interceptions is an underappreciated aspect of how he influences games.

“He’s quite clever and quite good defensively, which for their offensive game is extremely important,” LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo said. “So it does take from them.”

When Gauld is on the field, “everything’s going through him,” LAFC defender Ryan Hollingshead said. “He’s someone finding the last pass. He has the quality to get their strikers in really good spots to score some goals. They’re going to be missing him but it also throws a wrinkle at us.

“Now, you have a lot of questions about who’s going to be the guy that steps up to create those chances. How do you slow those guys down? What’s their system going to be? There’s a lot of questions unanswered now with him not being in the lineup, but there’s no question that they’re going to have a big hole to fill without him being there.”

Missing a key piece of the lineup is an “x-factor” that Cherundolo expects Sartini to try and spin to his advantage in a rare bit of pre-match mystery between the two: “I’m looking forward to seeing his solutions.”

VANCOUVER WHITECAPS FC AT LAFC

When: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.

Where: BMO Stadium, Los Angeles

TV/Radio: Apple TV – MLS Season Pass/710 AM, 980 AM