In less than a cock's crow, LAFC was eliminated from the Club World Cup after falling 1-0 to Espérance de Tunis, where the forward Franco-Gabonese Denis Bouanga went from hero to villain when he missed a last-minute penalty that would have helped Los Angeles earn their first point.

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After securing the last ticket to the FIFA world championship in a qualifying match that the governing body of world football pulled out of its sleeve against América of Mexico, it was expected that the team managed by Steve Cherundolo would make a statement in this competition and could at least advance to the next phase.

But after a disastrous debut against Chelsea of ??the Premier League 2-0 and the recent defeat against Espérance of Tunisia 0-1, they ruined all kinds of options to stay alive in the competition and now the match against Flamengo of Brazil will be a mere formality, as they cannot meet the demands of the competition.

The regrettable and surprising thing was Denis Bouanga, the best man in the Los Angeles forward line and who no more than 25 days ago showed the fate of the América of Mexico defense, went from hero to villain by missing the penalty that would have ensured survival of the North American team in their first World Cup participation.

In this way, what began as a story full of hope for the Angelenos, very soon gave them a dose of reality to say goodbye to this competition that little by little has been taking color and heat with tremendous games that will undoubtedly increase the expectation in the second round.

The actions

Espérance was the squad that started the game with greater authority, launching most of its units to the attack and that immediately put the French goalkeeper Hugo Lloris to work to save his goal with a great throw.

The pressure of the Africans continued since nine minutes Rodrigo Rodrigues,put a tremendous shot against the post of Lloris' goal, setting off the alarm bells and trying to rectify this shaky start.

The response of the Angels was not long in coming with two arrivals that ended in apparent goals, but were annulled by two offsides at 14 and 28 minutes, in actions with a lot of quality like the first play in which the Frenchman Olivier Giroud showed off with a backheel pass to Bouanga and fourteen minutes later David Martínez followed the same fate as his teammate to keep the game 0-0.

The best of the game

For the second half, Esperance Sportive de Tunisia, sought to have a charge in the 49th minute by Bouanga marked as a penalty, but the VAR judged that the fall of the Angels player was not a cause to generate destabilization of the rival.

But the Africans kept up the pressure and in the 62nd minute Yan Sasse made a great play, beating two opponents, but his shot was in front of Lloris and with that, LAFC was able to avoid the fall of their goal, while two minutes later the Dutchman Davairo Dilrosun, a player from América on loan for this tournament to LAFC, managed to find Giroud, but his header went into the hands of goalkeeper Bechir Ben Said.

That was as far as LAFC could hold out, because in the 70th minute, Youcef Belaili found a rebound in the area to cut down rivals and define over the exit of Hugo Lloris who now could not prevent the panorama from becoming ant-colored for the Los Angeles team.

Above all because LAFC could not change the story and despite eight minutes of extra time and a penalty play in the final instant of the action, they could avoid elimination, because Denis Bouanga was Bouanga again to miss the definitive penalty and with that, they are out of the competition pending next Tuesday's game at Camping World Stadium in Orlando vs. Flamengo, which could only serve to ensure they don't leave the competition without points.