Photo courtesy of LAFC.
Diego Rossi found the back net for LAFC in the CONCACAF Champions League final.
Almost, but not there.
Aiming for history, LAFC showed it was up to the task in the CONCACAF Champions League final against Tigres UANL. The two sides battled to a scoreless first half, then Diego Rossi’s goal and hour into the match gave LAFC a taste of CCL glory. It looked like LAFC would finally be the MLS team to finally breakthrough in the region’s premier club tournament and hoist the CCL trophy.
However, the task of trying to beat a fourth straight Liga MX team, especially a team that was just as desperate to lift that particular trophy themselves, was a little too much to handle. Tigres came back with unanswered goals from Hugo Ayala and Andres Pierre Gignac lifted Tigres, and it was them who finally ended years of CCL heartbreak with its 2-1 win at Orlando’s Exploria Stadium.
“We’re very disappointed,” LAFC Head Coach Bob Bradley said. “I thought for 70 minutes, we made the game very hard for them (Tigres UANL), it was a choppy game, the football wasn’t always perfect, but I thought our way of going after them and pushing the game for 70 minutes was wasn’t quite good.”
Certainly there is no shame in losing to Tigres UANL. Despite numerous success over the last decade, including five league titles, it was the CONCACAF Champions League trophy that proved the most elusive for Tigres. Three times prior to Tuesday’s final Tigres had made the CCL finals, and all three times they had come up short. Fortunately for Tigres, the fourth time finally turned out to be the charm, though LAFC certainly made them work for it.
Rossi put LAFC ahead in the 61st minute. Carlos Vela and Mark-Anthony Kaye exchanged passes, Kaye then played a ball into the penalty area, Rossi chased it down as did Tigres’ Javier Aquino, who missed on a clearance attempt, and Rossi lifted a ball over Aquino and Keeper Nahuel Guzman into the far post net and LAFC was in the drivers seat.
“Our team’s growing,” Bradley said. “We’ve played some really good football in some of these games. I thought our way of going after the game tonight was real good, some moments were not our sharpest, but our mentality to play in the final third and push the game, that was important.”
However, rather than fold like previous years, Tigres managed to summon a resolve that had been missing in its last three CCL final appearances. Tigres had a corner kick int he 72nd minute, Nicolas Lopez sent the corner into the penalty area, Ayala headed a ball far post and Kaye could not clear the ball at the goal line, the ball snuck in and just like that, the match was level. Tigres then pulled ahead in the 84th minute, as Luis Rodriguez received a pass near the halfway line and dribbled all the way into the LAFC penalty area. Rodriguez laid a ball for Gignac, who one-timed a volley from the top of the box that beat Vermeer far post for the go-ahead goal.
