On an LAFC team of well-paid superstars and World Cup champions, Nathan Ordaz is more blue collar than blue blood.
Yet he’s proving to be something else as well. He’s proving to be a difference-maker, a fearless attacker who doesn’t know — or won’t accept — his place among soccer’s brightest lights.
Consider Wednesday’s CONCACAF Champions Cup quarterfinal at BMO Stadium, a game that, on paper, should have been a blowout. Ordaz, a homegrown academy product from Van Nuys, was facing unbeaten Inter Miami and Lionel Messi, arguably the greatest player in history, an eight-time world player of the year and a World Cup and Olympic champion who has more than twice as many team trophies, 44, as the 21-year-old Ordaz has years on Earth.
Yet it was David who took down Goliath, with Ordaz’s second-half goal proving the difference in LAFC’s 1-0 win before a sold-out crowd that had come to see Messi, not Ordaz. The teams meet again next week in South Florida, where aggregate goals over the two-leg playoff will determine which side will advance to the semifinals.
LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo said the decision to give Ordaz, who was playing for LAFC’s developmental MLS NextPro team last fall, a start on such a big stage was a no-brainer.
“He’s earned the trust,” Cherundolo said. “Trust is something you don’t just give. You earn it. And Nate has earned that trust.
“He shows it in training. He’s come on really well this season. He worked hard in the offseason and he has taken his chance. He’s earning the right to play.”
Messi isn’t the first giant he has slain this season. Ordaz’s increased playing time has come, at least partially, at the expense of Olivier Giroud, a World Cup champion and France’s all-time leading scorer. Giroud, in his second season in MLS, has yet to score a goal in league play and has started just once in the last six weeks.
Ordaz has started four times over that span and scored three times.
“We knew Nate would run for us and without the ball, he worked extremely hard,” Cherundolo said. “He understood what areas to press, what areas to occupy defensively and his ability to run behind comes naturally to him.”
Ordaz also showed a bit of moxie midway through the first half Wednesday when he tangled with veteran Miami defender Maximiliano Falcón, who baited his young opponent all game. In an effort to separate himself from Falcón, Ordaz appeared to strike him in the face, which sent Falcón flopping to the turf and had Miami demanding a red card.
That would have left LAFC to play nearly 70 minutes shorthanded, but after a lengthy video review, referee Oshane Nation flashed a yellow at Ordaz, which he greeted with a nod and a thumbs-up.
LAFC forward Nathan Ordaz, second from right, celebrates his goal with teammates Cengiz Ünder, left, and Timothy Tillman.
For Miami coach Javier Mascherano, whose team lost for the first time in 10 games in all competitions, Nation’s call was the wrong one.
“When you hit a rival without the ball, what is it?” Mascherano queried a reporter in Spanish when asked about the call. “How do you respond? What card? What color? The red, obviously. It’s not a matter in interpretation.
“Off-ball aggression is a red card here, in China and on the moon.”
But not at BMO Stadium, where Ordaz was allowed to stay in the game long enough to win it, with his goal in the 57th minute giving LAFC its second win in six games and sending it to Florida next week with a one-goal lead in the two-game playoff.
“Nate is naturally a calm guy, doesn’t get too riled up. Staying calm is his default, which is great,” Cherundolo said. “We’re proud of him and it’s certainly a performance he should be happy with and can build on.”
