To live and die in L.A.: Austin FC's weirdest rivalry continues Wednesday night
Austin FC has faced LAFC 16 times in its history, and it's about to be 17 on Wednesday night. We call up some memories to explain why this series is, in a word, weird.
Are Austin FC and LAFC really rivals? Or are they just teams that face each other unusually frequently?
It's a bit of an existential question for Austin FC fans who easily accept Dallas and Houston as regional adversaries, and don't see the same natural geographic inclination toward the Black and Gold, but keep encountering them in their narrative.
Austin FC's first-ever regular-season match, in the pandemic-altered 2021 season, was a road match at LAFC with Brad Stuver in goal — somewhat surprising, given that pundits thought Andrew Tarbell would be the Day 1 starter — and 10 field players who have all since left the club, though it took until this summer for the last of those (Dani Pereira, wearing No. 15 in that opener) to depart.
It's a match that Verde lost 2-0 — a scoreline to keep in mind as we go through the history.
In the six years the teams have been in coexistence, they've played 16 times, only matched by FC Dallas and Houston Dynamo FC as Verde's most familiar opponents — and once Wednesday night's match in Los Angeles kicks off, it'll be the 17th, making LAFC their most familiar opponent ever.
They've faced off in the 2022 Western Conference Finals — one of Verde's highest-profile games to date — as well as a 2024 Leagues Cup Round of 32 match and 2025's first round of the playoffs. Verde were famously thwarted in all four of those matches.
It hasn't all been negative, but of those 16 matches, Austin FC's won just four and drawn three. Running the points-per-game numbers for Austin's matchups against all Western Conference teams, Austin has just 0.94 PPG against LAFC in its history, 11th among the 14 teams. Strangely, Austin is at its worst and close to its best against its two Texas rivals, with a 0.81 PPG against FC Dallas, lowest among all West matchups, but with a 1.75 PPG against Houston, second only to SKC (2 PPG) as its most favorable head-to-head record.
Here's a look back at some key moments in the series.
Gut-punch losses
We can't talk about LAFC from Austin's perspective without bringing in some heartbreak.
My indelible image of the 2022 Western Conference Finals was not one of the three goals scored against Austin FC that day, but rather center back and emotional leader Ruben Gabrielsen having a sit down on the field midway through the first half, giving his teammates a moment to regroup against an LAFC offensive onslaught that seemed sure to bring about the inevitable opening goal.
The 3-0 final margin spoke to LAFC's quality, but also ended the best season that Austin FC's had to date, largely defined by a very different match vs. LAFC with a three-goal margin earlier in the season. (Don't worry; we'll get there.) While it was evident in the last third of the 2022 season that Austin FC was flagging from its incredible early-season form, there was still an excitement around that season that hasn't quite been captured by the four successive iterations of the team.
(And had Austin advanced past LAFC? It would have played the Union in Philadelphia in the MLS Cup final, which might have significantly changed Jim Curtin's trajectory and diverted him from the path that landed him as Austin's head-coach-in-waiting.)
The 2-0 Leagues Cup loss in 2024 held its own brand of bitterness — not for the loss itself, coming in the Round of 32, but for how the Leagues Cup rules allowed it to unfold. In the group stages, Austin drew Monterrey and Pumas in its three-team group, and defying expectations, won both the matches and went into the knockout round bracket as the West 1 winner, against LAFC, which was the West 7 runner-up.
Logic would have you conclude that a group winner would host a group runner-up, but Leagues Cup operates under its own brand of logic. Organizers cited pre-tournament seedings in its decision to send Austin to SoCal — which at the time mystified and confused fans, who saw a pair of wins at home and expected a home knockout round match as a reward.
(That would repeat in 2026 when Austin earned a higher seed than Toluca in group play and then had to travel to Harrison, N.J., due to a Toluca-won-something-earlier clause woven into the rulebook.)
If Austin hosted LAFC in the Round of 32 match, would it have triumphed? We'll never know.
And then there's Bouanga
Bring up the LAFC-Austin series and you'll eventually need to get around to Denis Bouanga, who has scored eight goals against Verde in his career — three of them coming in the match at BMO Stadium on April 8, 2023. That match was an amazing singular showcase of the different ways that Bouanga can punish a defense, and while it's hard to watch because it's Austin's defense, it still holds up as one of MLS' best players in one of his best match performances.
While Austin's been able to neutralize Bouanga in some matches — we are going to get to some good moments soon, I promise – he's been a menace in others, and certainly in these last four years, he's been the face of the Black & Gold side of the series. When you earn the nickname "Stupid Sexy Bouanga" and do front-flip goal celebrations on the regular, you're bound to attract some attention.
Victories and moral victories
It might not stand as the absolute apex of Austin FC fan vibes — there are playoff victories and a trip to the U.S. Open Cup final in there as well — but Aug. 26, 2022, the date of Verde's 4-1 triumph over LAFC at Q2 Stadium – remains special. It was a rare Friday night match featuring the eventual top two seeds and Western Conference finalists, and to heighten the narrative, it was newly-acquired Gareth Bale's first start for the visitors.
Starting with Diego Fagúndez's free-kick goal a little more than a half-hour into the match, Verde went up 4-0 by the hour mark to fully announce themselves as MLS Cup contenders.
Verde's return to the playoffs in 2025 hinged heavily on early-season wins, and the March 15 win at LAFC — a 1-0 daytime contest in which Guilherme Biro scored early and the defense staved off Bouanga and Co. — proved critical. It halted a two-match losing streak following an opening day win, starting off a 4w 1L 1D sequence that included three straight wins – which allowed the club to absorb the eight-match winless streak that followed.
One factoid working in Austin FC's favor heading into this match it's unbeaten against LAFC in its last four regular-season matches – including the 0-0 draw in March (that included an apparent Myrto Uzuni goal taken away by VAR) and the 1-0 win in mid-October last season (with an Owen Wolff late winner), which was a makeup date for the July match called off because of floods throughout Central Texas (though called off when some, including myself, had already made their way to the Domain).
In the mix, however, are the two straight defeats in the playoffs that took No. 6 Austin out of the playoffs. That means that, in both years Austin made the playoffs, LAFC eliminated them. Tally scores of the three playoff matches together, and LAFC has a 9-2 edge.
LAFC also has 28 goals to Austin's 15 in the entirety of the series, but extract all the playoff and Leagues Cup matches, and that margin shrinks to 17-13 over 12 regular season games. (Remember, in 2021, the teams played three regular-season matches rather than the customary two.)
During the regular season, Verde are 4W 5L 3D against LAFC, for a PPG of 1.25, which is borderline playoff level.
The X(avi) factor
If you're not up on your latest LAFC happenings, remember the name Xavi Tamarit. He's the new interim head coach, elevated from his assistant position on Oct. 1 following Marc dos Santos' dismissal on Sept. 27.
His announcement press release includes some fascinating tidbits:
Tamarit joined the club in January, bringing more than two decades’ worth of elite coaching experience in some of the world’s most competitive leagues, including the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga and Argentina’s top division. A UEFA Pro and CONMEBOL Pro License holder, Tamarit completed his postgraduate studies in high-performance football at the University of Porto and has authored multiple books on the subject. Fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese, his familiarity with LAFC’s players and daily work within the club position him well to lead the group through the remainder of the season.
Both teams will head into this contest led by interim head coaches, certainly a first for this series, and curiously, in the span of time that Austin's been helmed by three head coaches, LAFC's now on its fourth, with Austin entering the league in the last year of the Bob Bradley era.
It's a bit early for playoff matchup projections, but LAFC's currently in sixth, but based on PPG (as they and the Galaxy have played one more match than all other West teams), they're 7th, and would currently face off against St. Louis. But given St. Louis' current hot streak, it's conceivable that LAFC could end up with a familiar first-round opponent in Vancouver — a team it's notoriously gotten over in multiple competitions over the years, though the Whitecaps triumphed in 2025 on their way to MLS Cup.
(LAFC and Vancouver, incidentally, drew on Saturday night, which was enough for the 'Caps to qualify for the playoffs officially.)
To sum up
Good luck predicting Wednesday night's outcome. LAFC's been an enigma in 2026, possibly even more than Verde, and it's no longer automatic that LAFC beats Austin at home — the last regular-season win for LAFC at BMO was the Bouanga hat trick match three years ago.
Verde desperately need points to stay in the playoff hunt, and LAFC's a place where they can conceivably get at least a point. Given the state of both teams, I expect to at least be entertained, which is usually the case when these teams meet. And I don't know how it will translate to streaming, but LAFC's also designated the match as Hello Kitty Night, with promotional materials featuring Son Heung-min with the famed Sanrio feline. That's a wrinkle in a weird rivalry I didn't quite see coming – but I'm not mad at it.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts, and join us on Instagram to get updates on all our stories and podcast releases.
Both Davy Arnaud and Brad Stuver indicated that it wasn't a good night for Verde and the transformed stadium energy was noticeable, while acknowledging Nashville SC was a formidable opponent.
Against the backdrop of a stadium atmosphere different than anything Verde have experienced before, the team let in three second-half goals to see its eight-match unbeaten streak come to an end.
Austin FC returns to MLS play on Saturday to face the Supporters' Shield leaders. We spoke to the journalist who perhaps knows them best to get some perspective.
If a top seed falls in Soldier Field on a random Tuesday during the international break, does it make a sound? Here's how Vancouver's loss to Chicago sets up potential shifts in table math.
Are Austin FC and LAFC really rivals? Or are they just teams that face each other unusually frequently?
It's a bit of an existential question for Austin FC fans who easily accept Dallas and Houston as regional adversaries, and don't see the same natural geographic inclination toward the Black and Gold, but keep encountering them in their narrative.
Austin FC's first-ever regular-season match, in the pandemic-altered 2021 season, was a road match at LAFC with Brad Stuver in goal — somewhat surprising, given that pundits thought Andrew Tarbell would be the Day 1 starter — and 10 field players who have all since left the club, though it took until this summer for the last of those (Dani Pereira, wearing No. 15 in that opener) to depart.
It's a match that Verde lost 2-0 — a scoreline to keep in mind as we go through the history.
In the six years the teams have been in coexistence, they've played 16 times, only matched by FC Dallas and Houston Dynamo FC as Verde's most familiar opponents — and once Wednesday night's match in Los Angeles kicks off, it'll be the 17th, making LAFC their most familiar opponent ever.
They've faced off in the 2022 Western Conference Finals — one of Verde's highest-profile games to date — as well as a 2024 Leagues Cup Round of 32 match and 2025's first round of the playoffs. Verde were famously thwarted in all four of those matches.
It hasn't all been negative, but of those 16 matches, Austin FC's won just four and drawn three. Running the points-per-game numbers for Austin's matchups against all Western Conference teams, Austin has just 0.94 PPG against LAFC in its history, 11th among the 14 teams. Strangely, Austin is at its worst and close to its best against its two Texas rivals, with a 0.81 PPG against FC Dallas, lowest among all West matchups, but with a 1.75 PPG against Houston, second only to SKC (2 PPG) as its most favorable head-to-head record.
Here's a look back at some key moments in the series.
Gut-punch losses
We can't talk about LAFC from Austin's perspective without bringing in some heartbreak.
My indelible image of the 2022 Western Conference Finals was not one of the three goals scored against Austin FC that day, but rather center back and emotional leader Ruben Gabrielsen having a sit down on the field midway through the first half, giving his teammates a moment to regroup against an LAFC offensive onslaught that seemed sure to bring about the inevitable opening goal.
The 3-0 final margin spoke to LAFC's quality, but also ended the best season that Austin FC's had to date, largely defined by a very different match vs. LAFC with a three-goal margin earlier in the season. (Don't worry; we'll get there.) While it was evident in the last third of the 2022 season that Austin FC was flagging from its incredible early-season form, there was still an excitement around that season that hasn't quite been captured by the four successive iterations of the team.
(And had Austin advanced past LAFC? It would have played the Union in Philadelphia in the MLS Cup final, which might have significantly changed Jim Curtin's trajectory and diverted him from the path that landed him as Austin's head-coach-in-waiting.)
The 2-0 Leagues Cup loss in 2024 held its own brand of bitterness — not for the loss itself, coming in the Round of 32, but for how the Leagues Cup rules allowed it to unfold. In the group stages, Austin drew Monterrey and Pumas in its three-team group, and defying expectations, won both the matches and went into the knockout round bracket as the West 1 winner, against LAFC, which was the West 7 runner-up.
Logic would have you conclude that a group winner would host a group runner-up, but Leagues Cup operates under its own brand of logic. Organizers cited pre-tournament seedings in its decision to send Austin to SoCal — which at the time mystified and confused fans, who saw a pair of wins at home and expected a home knockout round match as a reward.
(That would repeat in 2026 when Austin earned a higher seed than Toluca in group play and then had to travel to Harrison, N.J., due to a Toluca-won-something-earlier clause woven into the rulebook.)
If Austin hosted LAFC in the Round of 32 match, would it have triumphed? We'll never know.
And then there's Bouanga
Bring up the LAFC-Austin series and you'll eventually need to get around to Denis Bouanga, who has scored eight goals against Verde in his career — three of them coming in the match at BMO Stadium on April 8, 2023. That match was an amazing singular showcase of the different ways that Bouanga can punish a defense, and while it's hard to watch because it's Austin's defense, it still holds up as one of MLS' best players in one of his best match performances.
While Austin's been able to neutralize Bouanga in some matches — we are going to get to some good moments soon, I promise – he's been a menace in others, and certainly in these last four years, he's been the face of the Black & Gold side of the series. When you earn the nickname "Stupid Sexy Bouanga" and do front-flip goal celebrations on the regular, you're bound to attract some attention.
Victories and moral victories
It might not stand as the absolute apex of Austin FC fan vibes — there are playoff victories and a trip to the U.S. Open Cup final in there as well — but Aug. 26, 2022, the date of Verde's 4-1 triumph over LAFC at Q2 Stadium – remains special. It was a rare Friday night match featuring the eventual top two seeds and Western Conference finalists, and to heighten the narrative, it was newly-acquired Gareth Bale's first start for the visitors.
Starting with Diego Fagúndez's free-kick goal a little more than a half-hour into the match, Verde went up 4-0 by the hour mark to fully announce themselves as MLS Cup contenders.
Verde's return to the playoffs in 2025 hinged heavily on early-season wins, and the March 15 win at LAFC — a 1-0 daytime contest in which Guilherme Biro scored early and the defense staved off Bouanga and Co. — proved critical. It halted a two-match losing streak following an opening day win, starting off a 4w 1L 1D sequence that included three straight wins – which allowed the club to absorb the eight-match winless streak that followed.
One factoid working in Austin FC's favor heading into this match it's unbeaten against LAFC in its last four regular-season matches – including the 0-0 draw in March (that included an apparent Myrto Uzuni goal taken away by VAR) and the 1-0 win in mid-October last season (with an Owen Wolff late winner), which was a makeup date for the July match called off because of floods throughout Central Texas (though called off when some, including myself, had already made their way to the Domain).
In the mix, however, are the two straight defeats in the playoffs that took No. 6 Austin out of the playoffs. That means that, in both years Austin made the playoffs, LAFC eliminated them. Tally scores of the three playoff matches together, and LAFC has a 9-2 edge.
LAFC also has 28 goals to Austin's 15 in the entirety of the series, but extract all the playoff and Leagues Cup matches, and that margin shrinks to 17-13 over 12 regular season games. (Remember, in 2021, the teams played three regular-season matches rather than the customary two.)
During the regular season, Verde are 4W 5L 3D against LAFC, for a PPG of 1.25, which is borderline playoff level.
The X(avi) factor
If you're not up on your latest LAFC happenings, remember the name Xavi Tamarit. He's the new interim head coach, elevated from his assistant position on Oct. 1 following Marc dos Santos' dismissal on Sept. 27.
His announcement press release includes some fascinating tidbits:
Both teams will head into this contest led by interim head coaches, certainly a first for this series, and curiously, in the span of time that Austin's been helmed by three head coaches, LAFC's now on its fourth, with Austin entering the league in the last year of the Bob Bradley era.
It's a bit early for playoff matchup projections, but LAFC's currently in sixth, but based on PPG (as they and the Galaxy have played one more match than all other West teams), they're 7th, and would currently face off against St. Louis. But given St. Louis' current hot streak, it's conceivable that LAFC could end up with a familiar first-round opponent in Vancouver — a team it's notoriously gotten over in multiple competitions over the years, though the Whitecaps triumphed in 2025 on their way to MLS Cup.
(LAFC and Vancouver, incidentally, drew on Saturday night, which was enough for the 'Caps to qualify for the playoffs officially.)
To sum up
Good luck predicting Wednesday night's outcome. LAFC's been an enigma in 2026, possibly even more than Verde, and it's no longer automatic that LAFC beats Austin at home — the last regular-season win for LAFC at BMO was the Bouanga hat trick match three years ago.
Verde desperately need points to stay in the playoff hunt, and LAFC's a place where they can conceivably get at least a point. Given the state of both teams, I expect to at least be entertained, which is usually the case when these teams meet. And I don't know how it will translate to streaming, but LAFC's also designated the match as Hello Kitty Night, with promotional materials featuring Son Heung-min with the famed Sanrio feline. That's a wrinkle in a weird rivalry I didn't quite see coming – but I'm not mad at it.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts, and join us on Instagram to get updates on all our stories and podcast releases.
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