SAN DIEGO -- LAFC looked like a team caught in between for 70 minutes. Then they looked like a team that refused to lose.
The gap between those two versions defined a chaotic, revealing 2-2 draw against San Diego FC on Saturday night, where rotation, fatigue, and urgency all collided before LAFC clawed back with two late goals, the last arriving in the 104th minute.
Marc Dos Santos warned about nights like this before kickoff. Not directly, but in the choices he made.
Nine changes to the starting XI told the story. This wasn't a throwaway match, but it wasn't approached like a normal one either. With a decisive second leg against Toluca looming at altitude, LAFC leaned on depth and hoped the structure would hold long enough.
It didn't early.
San Diego struck in the seventh minute, a corner from Anders Dreyer finding Marcus Ingvartsen , whose header deflected off Eddie Segura and past Hugo Lloris . It was a simple sequence, but it exposed something Dos Santos pointed to later, the spacing.
"We were distant, were far from each other… too many long balls," he said.
LAFC weren't just rotated, they were disconnected. Possession felt stretched. Passing lanes didn't line up. The usual rhythm never arrived.
San Diego didn't overwhelm them, but they didn't need to. LAFC were doing enough to keep the game controlled defensively, but almost nothing to tilt it the other way.
Dos Santos adjusted at halftime, bringing on Mark Delgado and David Martínez, small moves that signaled a shift in intent. The game began to lean slightly toward LAFC, but just as they started to settle, they handed San Diego a second goal.
And this one, Dos Santos didn't soften.
A turnover in the defensive third in the 71st minute turned into another Dreyer service, another Ingvartsen finish, this time a composed touch into the lower corner for a 2-0 lead.
"A very bad goal from us," Dos Santos said. "We try to overlap before the ball's under control… really bad goal to give away."
It wasn't just the mistake, it was the timing. LAFC were just beginning to establish control, and instead, they reset the climb.
That could've been the breaking point. Instead, it became the trigger.
The substitutions kept coming. Son Heung-min entered on the hour mark. Then Tyler Boyd and Mathieu Choinière followed. The lineup started to resemble something closer to LAFC's first-choice group, and with it came energy that hadn't been there before.
The shift was immediate. LAFC compressed the field. The distances tightened. Possession turned purposeful instead of passive.
And eventually, it produced something tangible.
In the 82nd minute, a quick passing sequence cut through San Diego's shape, ending with Son slipping Denis Bouanga into the box. From a tight angle, Bouanga drove it home to cut the deficit in half.
It was his first league goal since April 4, but more importantly, it changed the tone of the night.
San Diego, suddenly, had to defend something real.
From there, the match turned into sustained pressure. LAFC pushed numbers forward, tested goalkeeper CJ dos Santos repeatedly, and when he left the match injured late, they kept pushing against Duran Ferree.
It wasn't clean. It wasn't always controlled. But it was relentless.
Ryan Hollingshead described it simply.
"With how tired our legs should be, to be able to push like that is really big."
That push didn't just happen physically. It came with belief, something Dos Santos pointed to in a subtle but telling moment.
When stoppage time was announced, he heard silence from the home crowd. Only LAFC supporters carried noise.
"There was a belief from our group and from our fans that we could tie," he said.
The clock stretched deep into added time. Past 100 minutes. Past the point where most games are decided.
Then came the moment.
A corner in the 104th minute dropped into chaos. Choinière attacked it first, heading the ball into a dangerous area. Hollingshead reacted, turned, and finished from close range.
2-2.
The latest regular-season goal in club history.
For Hollingshead, it was more than just timing. It was validation. After dealing with lingering knee issues, he said he finally feels like himself again.
"I feel like my body's finally back… I felt explosive again."
His goal reflected that. Not just the finish, but the instinct to stay active in the box, to keep the play alive after the initial action passed him.
That's where LAFC found the equalizer, not in structure, but in persistence.
And maybe that's the clearest takeaway from a match that never settled into a clean rhythm.
LAFC didn't control this game from the start. They didn't manage it cleanly through the middle. They made mistakes that nearly cost them everything.
But they also showed exactly what's kept them competitive through a brutal stretch of matches.
"We never give up," Dos Santos said.
That's not just a line. The schedule doesn't allow anything else. This was their eighth match in a stretch that will reach 13 in 44 days. Rotation isn't optional. Imperfection isn't avoidable.
