MLS
El Tráfico: What is the LAFC - LA Galaxy head-to-head record?
MLS’s two Los Angeles sides resume hostilities at BMO Stadium on Saturday. Which team has the best record in the fixture?
LAFC and LA Galaxy meet at BMO Stadium on Saturday 6 April for the 22nd edition of the El Tráfico rivalry. The two teams look set to challenge for silverware this year and this first meeting of 2024 will be a real test of their championship credentials.
Both LAFC and LA Galaxy have enjoyed periods of great success in MLS, but never at the same time. The Galaxy were one of the league’s founding teams and they were the preeminent force for the first 20 years of MLS. They won five MLS Cups, still a league-high, and lifted the CONCACAF Champions Cup in 2000.
LAFC only joined MLS in 2018 but it did not take them long to start competing for titles. In 2019 they won the Supporters Shield and they did so again in 2022, going on to lift MLS Cup for the first time in their history. Since LAFC arrived in MLS they have generally been the stronger of the two Los Angeles sides but, as our friends at Sofascore show, it is the Galaxy who have the better head-to-head record...
Across their previous 21 meetings LA Galaxy have come out on top nine times, with LAFC picking up seven wins. In 2023 the two teams met four times, winning two games apiece.
Who has scored the most goals in El Tráfico history?
Over the years some of the most celebrated stars in MLS history have turned out for LAFC and LA Galaxy. Both teams are expected to compete in the Western Conference every single year and the draw of living in Los Angeles has helped them attract big players from Europe.
Since the first meeting of the two teams in 2018 the likes of Carlos Vela and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have featured in El Tráfico fixtures and, perhaps unsurprisingly, those two MLS icons are at the top of the scoring charts.
Carlos Vela and Zlatan Ibrahimovic are the two highest scorers in El Tráfico history and they both left their mark on the first game in the rivalry’s history.
The first meeting of the two teams came in March 2018 and finished with a dramatic 4-3 victory for the Galaxy. LAFC, playing in their third-ever MLS game, took a commanding 3-0 lead thanks to a brace from Carlos Vela. The match was turned on its 4-3 comeback win.
Ibrahimovic went one better the following season, becoming the first player to score an El Tráfico hat trick. Speaking after the Galaxy’s 3-2 win, the Sweden superstar reflected on his performance in typically bombastic style: “When you play against a rival like that, in a full stadium, I get pumped. I get adrenaline. This is considered to be the biggest game in the league and I show up in the biggest games. I am in play-off mode every day.”