Establishing a lead in the Supporters’ Shield standings prior to the 2022 MLS All-Star game in August, the Los Angeles Football Club was regularly dominating second halves and securing points.
Thanks to rookie coach Steve Cherundolo’s even-keel approach and his management of a deep roster, midfielder Ilie Sanchez, who joined LAFC as a free agent, credited in-game adjustments from the coaching staff for helping shut down opponents as matches wore on.
“I think the coaching staff is very precise in what they want to see in the first half, and if they don’t see it or see something different, we just try to change it at halftime,” Sanchez said at the time. “Plus we are trying to raise our intensity in games and I believe the opponents feel it is tougher to maintain that kind of intensity for the rest of the 90 minutes. It’s kind of both. We can make adjustments, but also maintaining or raising our level a little bit makes it much harder and very difficult for the opponents.”
Dropping a league-low three points from winning positions over the course of the season marked a significant improvement for Cherundolo’s group compared to previous versions of LAFC. That was also true relative to the league. New England won the Supporters’ Shield in 2021 but failed to qualify for the playoffs last year in large part because it gave away an MLS-worst 31 points after taking the lead.
Arriving in Los Angeles following five seasons with Sporting Kansas City after being groomed as a player through the Barcelona system, Sanchez said Cherundolo is one of the few coaches he encountered who offers thoughts immediately after games instead of waiting until the next training session.
The advantage of that, Sanchez said, was the input allowed players to reflect on results knowing exactly where they stood according to Cherundolo’s game model, which demanded speed and intensity adjusted for calculated risk and the ever-present variable of luck.
Weighing all of this, the…
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