SAN DIEGO — Making nine changes to the lineup that started in a critical win over Toluca FC on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Football Club held competing priorities coming into their MLS regular season game on the weekend.
After losing both games against San Diego FC in 2025, defeating their new rival to the south was top of mind. But so was resting players who would be counted on to carry the day at 8,750 feet above sea level during the second leg of the CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinal in Toluca next week.
“You don’t want to come to this game and throw it away,” said LAFC head coach Marc Dos Santos. “You’re kind of in between. You want to get a result here, but you have to be very responsible for what’s coming ahead on Wednesday.”
Ultimately, LAFC (6-2-3, 21 points) battled through 106 minutes in front of an announced crowd of 28,459 at Snapdragon Stadium to salvage a 2-2 draw against a hungry opponent that had lost five straight league matches.
Late in stoppage time — the fourth official flashed nine minutes and that was extended when bloodied San Diego goalkeeper CJ Dos Santos, making his first start since last year’s MLS Cup playoffs, had to be removed following a collision with Denis Bouanga — LAFC defender Ryan Hollingshead found the equalizer to complete a two-goal comeback that makes the bus ride back to Los Angeles brighter than it might have been.
“We can’t go down two goals like that, but to come back and tie it the way that we did it feels almost like a win,” said Hollingshead, whose 104th-minute goal made him the second highest regular-season scorer for an MLS defender (32), three behind leader Brek Shea. “It feels like we’ve got that momentum now going into Toluca and, man, we needed that. It’s a perfect response from the guys.”
In his fifth season with LAFC, Hollingshead, 35, has been less of a factor than in previous seasons. He dealt with a knee issue from last year that he tried to play through, setting him back with his mechanics and running. But in recent weeks, Hollingshead said he finally feels like he’s 100%.
“My mindset this entire time is I’ll be ready when the team needs me,” he said. “In this moment, to step up and get on the scoresheet again is huge.”
Three minutes before the point-saving goal, Son Heung-min, who entered the match at the hour mark for Ryan Raposo, nearly set Hollingshead up, but his header missed the mark.
“In the back of my head, I was like I gotta get another chance,” he said. “I owe it to the boys to go do something here.”
SDFC (3-5-3, 12 points) snatched the lead seven minutes following kickoff when center forward Marcus Ingvarsten’s header from a corner was redirected past Hugo Lloris by LAFC defender Eddie Segura.
Ingvarsten doubled the lead in the 71st minute on a goal that Dos Santos called “very bad.”
Hollingshead’s finish, aided by a header from midfielder Mathieu Choiniere, piggybacked Bouanga’s goal in the 82nd minute.
After missing Leg 1 against Toluca due to yellow-card accumulation, Bouanga started and played through the final whistle on Saturday.
LAFC’s all-time leading scorer found glory from a tight angle off Son’s 15th assist in 16 appearances across all competitions in 2026. The shot was LAFC’s first on target.
Playing his 152nd regular-season game for LAFC, tying Carlos Vela for the club record, Eddie Segura, like Bouanga, had been forced to sit out the first leg against Toluca due to yellow-card accumulation.
The fact that Segura was more involved in goal-scoring scenarios than Bouanga in the first 45 minutes was indicative of LAFC’s trouble generating dangerous chances with its makeshift starting XI.
“It’s not like San Diego was really dangerous, but we were never dangerous,” Dos Santos said. “When you make a lot of changes, you lose a lot of microdynamics in the team. Little connections. I felt the first half was kind of passive. We didn’t find players between lines. Our distance was far from each other. When we had the ball too many long balls. A lot of things like that.”
Opening in the attack alongside Bouanga, Nathan Ordaz and Jeremy Ebobisse did not link up in significant ways during the first half, prompting Dos Santos to bring on forward David Martínez for Ordaz as well as midfielder Mark Delgado, who replaced 17-year-old homegrown Jude Terry at halftime of the San Diego native’s second MLS start.
All told, LAFC made six second-half changes.
“The guys that came on — we had some x-amount of minutes in the minutes that was a good amount for today — brought amazing energy, all of them,” Dos Santos said.
LAFC can now fully focus on Toluca, which hosts Pachuca in a Liga MX playoff match, before departing for Mexico on Tuesday.
“Such a big result from us, especially going down two goals showing how resilient we are as a team in this stretch that we’ve had,” Hollingshead said. “With how tired our legs should be to push like that is really big.”
“We never give up,” Dos Santos added. “We’re a group that has 18 games in about two months and a week. In 18 games, we lost two and we’re in the semifinal of Champions Cup. We keep grinding, pushing and our guys have an amazing mindset.”