LAFC Survive Penalty Shootout Thriller as Bouanga Matches Messi’s Leagues Cup Scoring Record

Denis Bouanga scored a first-half goal and converted the opening penalty as LAFC opened its Leagues Cup 2026 campaign with a 5-4 shootout win over Chivas de Guadalajara, extra drama that ended with a 17-year-old homegrown player burying the winning kick.

Bouanga’s 38th-minute finish, set up by a David Martinez assist, moved him back to the top of the all-time Leagues Cup scoring list, tying Inter Miami superstar Lionel Messi at 14 goals in the competition. Chivas equalized soon after to send the match to a penalty shootout following a 1-1 draw through 90 minutes at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.

LAFC weathered an early spell of Chivas possession before pouncing on the counterattack for the opening goal, with Bouanga sliding home Martinez’s pass to send the home crowd into full voice. Chivas responded quickly, leveling the score before the halftime whistle and setting up a second half in which neither side could find a winner inside regulation time.

“A great show for the fans”

LAFC manager Marc Dos Santos praised his team’s response after the match, calling the atmosphere at BMO Stadium among the best his side has experienced.

“It was a great show for the fans,” Dos Santos said post-match. “Good attitude from our guys. And then winning in penalty shots, this extra point can be important.”

He singled out Bouanga’s finish for special praise. “The goal is a golazo from us,” Dos Santos said. “The goal is a golazo, and the play is really good.”

Wednesday’s match marked the first-ever meeting between the two clubs, and it drew a raucous crowd that Dos Santos said spoke to the scale of the occasion. “This tournament gives us an experience that’s hard to get,” he said. “Look at the stadium today. What an environment. You see that they’re a big club. Only big clubs bring this amount of fans and supporters. It is a good team, a team with quality, a team that has four or five players in the World Cup. They challenged us a lot under pressure.”

He added: “It takes a lot of energy to play a team like Chivas.”

Homegrown hero seals it

After 90 goalless minutes beyond the opening exchange of goals, the match went to penalties in front of LAFC’s 3252 supporters’ section. Goalkeeper Thomas Hasal dove to his left to deny Luis Romo’s spot kick, opening the door for 17-year-old homegrown midfielder Jude Terry to step up with the sixth kick of the shootout.

Terry did not hesitate, calmly placing his effort into the upper-right corner past Mexican international goalkeeper Raul Rangel to secure the extra point for LAFC on the Leagues Cup table.

The moment capped a rapid rise for the Chula Vista native, who joined LAFC’s academy at age 12 in 2021 after a trial arranged following his time with Legends FC. His mother, Claudia, used to pick him up from school early and drive him to Los Angeles for training while he finished his homework in the car, a routine that laid the groundwork for the path he has followed through LAFC’s academy system. Terry made his professional debut for LAFC2 in MLS NEXT Pro in 2024, signed a Homegrown contract with the first team effective January 1, 2025, and captained the United States’ national 15-and-under team to a Concacaf Cup title in 2023, the first in that age group’s history for the country. Wednesday’s penalty marked the biggest moment of his young LAFC career to date, delivered in front of a packed BMO Stadium in a shootout that decided a first-ever meeting between the two clubs.

Bouanga chasing another big Leagues Cup haul

Bouanga has built a reputation as one of the tournament’s signature performers, netting six goals in each of the 2023 and 2024 editions of Leagues Cup. His opening goal of this year’s competition puts him on pace to challenge for the top scorer honors again, and the shootout conversion added another data point to a résumé that already includes 14 career Leagues Cup goals, level with Messi for the most in the tournament’s history.

The Gabon international has been one of LAFC’s most consistent attacking threats for several seasons now, and Wednesday’s performance extended a pattern of big moments arriving in the biggest games on the club’s calendar.

Bouanga is LAFC’s all-time leading scorer with 94 goals in 144 appearances across all competitions. He won the MLS Golden Boot in 2023 with 20 regular-season goals, matched that tally again in 2024, then set a career high with 24 regular-season goals in 2025 to become the first player in league history to score at least 20 goals in three straight seasons. He was central to LAFC’s 2022 MLS Cup run too, scoring a stoppage-time winner in Portland that clinched the Supporters’ Shield before adding two more goals in that year’s playoffs.

A quality opponent under Milito

Dos Santos’s praise for Chivas reflected the Mexican club’s standing this season. Under manager Gabriel Milito, Chivas sat top of the Liga MX Clausura table before the international break, built around forward Armando Gonzalez and midfielders Roberto Alvarado and Efrain Alvarez. Several Chivas players missed time with Mexico’s national team at the 2026 World Cup, and the squad that traveled to Los Angeles carried the kind of talent Dos Santos referenced when he pointed out how many of Wednesday’s opponents had featured at the tournament this summer.

Leagues Cup 2026 features all 18 Liga MX clubs and 18 MLS teams split into Eastern and Western regions, with every club playing three matches against opposite-league opponents in the group phase before the top four from each league in every region advance to a knockout bracket. Every point counts in that race, which is why LAFC pushing the Chivas match to penalties for the extra point carries real value toward the club’s push for the knockout rounds.

A demanding week ahead

LAFC do not have long to enjoy the result. The club returns to action Saturday against Toluca, the 2025 Liga MX champions, in what Dos Santos already expects to be one of the tougher tests of the tournament’s opening phase.

“Saturday is going to be very demanding for us,” Dos Santos said.

The manager pointed to his group’s mentality as the foundation for facing a schedule that has offered little rest after LAFC’s players returned from a World Cup summer that saw several squad members represent their countries. Bouanga and forward Son Heung-Min, both playing at a high level after their return to club duty, give Dos Santos a pair of proven scoring threats to lean on against Toluca.

“[Our guys] never stop,” Dos Santos said. “It’s not easy. We’ve had difficult games. The mentality of this group is excellent right now.”

Son’s own form has been a talking point through the second half of LAFC’s season. The South Korean captain returned from a difficult 2026 World Cup with South Korea and struggled to find the net across his first 13 games back in MLS play, going 45 shots without a goal before ending the drought with a first strike in an El Trafico appearance against LA Galaxy. He narrowly missed with a free kick against Chivas on Wednesday, a reminder that his finishing form remains a work in progress even as his overall performances have picked up after his return to the group.

What the extra point means

Leagues Cup awards a bonus point to the winner of a penalty shootout following a draw, meaning LAFC’s victory over Chivas counts for more than a single result in the group phase. With Toluca waiting this weekend and the tournament’s knockout rounds still to come, every point picked up in the opening matches factors into seeding for the rounds ahead.

LAFC reached the Leagues Cup final in 2024, losing 3-1 to Columbus Crew after Olivier Giroud’s equalizer was answered by two Crew goals in second-half stoppage time. An opening result built on a Bouanga golazo, a Hasal penalty save and a teenager’s ice-cold finish offers an early sign that LAFC intend to contend again this summer, even with a schedule that offers no room to rest between now and the weekend.

Whatever happens against Toluca, Wednesday already delivered the kind of night that explains why players and fans alike keep pointing to Leagues Cup as one of the highlights on the MLS calendar. A record-chasing forward, a first-time saved penalty from the goalkeeper and a 17-year-old converting the biggest kick of his career combined to turn a group-stage opener into a genuine occasion, and Dos Santos made clear afterward that his group has no plans to treat the rest of the tournament any differently.