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.
Read more:LAFC holds Lionel Messi scoreless, earns CONCACAF Champions Cup win over Inter Miami
“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 ...
