Los Angeles Football Club

An expansion club with a plan

LAFC were established on 30 October 2014, created to fill the hole left in Los Angeles by the collapse of Chivas USA. The ownership group that took control in 2016 — managing owners Brandon Beck, Larry Berg and Bennett Rosenthal, with Peter Guber as executive chairman — did not build a club around a single marquee name so much as around a site. BMO Stadium opened on 18 April 2018 in Exposition Park, on the footprint of the old Los Angeles Sports Arena, the first open-air professional venue built in the city since Dodger Stadium in 1962. Capacity is 22,000, which is small by American standards and deliberately so.

The first season, under Bob Bradley, produced 57 points, the most any expansion team had managed. Carlos Vela became the reference point for everything that followed: in 2019 he scored 34 league goals, a record at the time, and took the MVP award while the club won the Supporters' Shield with 72 points. Bradley left after 2021. Steve Cherundolo took over in January 2022 and stayed four years.

What they have actually won

The 2022 season remains the high point. LAFC took a second Supporters' Shield and then beat Philadelphia Union on penalties in an MLS Cup final that is still the most frequently replayed match in the league's recent history. In 2024 they added the U.S. Open Cup, the club's first. Those three competitions — league table, cup, knockout — are the entire trophy cabinet, which is a thin return for a side that has been near the top for most of its existence.

Where the record is genuinely unusual is in durability. LAFC reached the Western Conference semi-finals in each of the four seasons from 2022 to 2025, the only MLS club to do so. Three of those runs ended short of a final. The 2025 exit was the hardest to take: at BC Place on 22 November, Vancouver Whitecaps led 2-0 inside 45 minutes through Emmanuel Sabbi and Tristan Blackmon's side, LAFC hauled it back to 2-2, played extra time with an extra man, and lost 4-3 on penalties with Denis Bouanga and David Martínez both striking the post. LAFC had knocked Vancouver out in 2023 and 2024.

Between those seasons came a different kind of test. LAFC qualified for the expanded FIFA Club World Cup in 2025 and came out of the group stage without a win — a draw and two defeats against Chelsea, Espérance de Tunis and Flamengo — which was a reasonably honest measure of where an MLS side sat against that company.

Son, Lloris and the most expensive squad in the league

In August 2025 LAFC signed Son Heung-min from Tottenham Hotspur for a reported fee of up to $26.5m, the largest transfer in MLS history, on a deal running through 2027 with club options to June 2029. Son arrived having scored 173 goals in ten years at Tottenham and as the first Asian player to win the Premier League Golden Boot, in 2021-22. His home debut filled BMO Stadium and brought a new Korean-speaking constituency into a stadium that already drew heavily on the city's Mexican and Salvadoran support.

Around him the club assembled a squad with no obvious excuses: Hugo Lloris, a World Cup winner, in goal; Bouanga, the leading scorer of the past four seasons, on the left; Jacob Shaffelburg and the Bayern Munich academy forward Armindo Sieb added for 2026. Marc Dos Santos was announced as head coach on 5 December 2025 to replace Cherundolo.

The pairing worked immediately and then stopped working. Son and Bouanga are the most productive attacking combination in the league by raw output — Bouanga finished the league season on 17 goals, 24 in all competitions; Son on seven goals in 28 appearances and 15 regular-season assists, which leads MLS and ties Vela's club record for a single season. The problem was never the front two.

The 2026 season, in order

It opened at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on 21 February with a 3-0 win over the defending champions, Inter Miami, in front of 75,673 — the largest crowd for a season opener in MLS history. David Martínez, Bouanga and Nathan Ordaz scored. LAFC then went eleven matches unbeaten, battered Orlando City 6-0 on 4 April, and on 29 April beat Deportivo Toluca 2-1 at BMO Stadium in the first leg of the Concacaf Champions Cup semi-final, Nkosi Tafari heading in a Son free-kick in second-half stoppage time. The return in Toluca was a 4-0 defeat, 5-2 on aggregate, and the heaviest loss of the season.

From there the league form fell apart. By 22 August, after consecutive 1-0 defeats to San Diego FC and Colorado Rapids, a 1-1 home draw with Portland Timbers was being written up locally as encouragement rather than a dropped point. Aaron Long's assessment after that match — that the team had wanted six points from two games and taken one — summarised the stretch better than any tactical diagnosis. LAFC won once in their final ten league games under Dos Santos and took two wins from thirteen in all competitions. He was dismissed on 27 September.

Xavi Tamarit, 44, a Spaniard who had joined Dos Santos's staff in January 2026 after work in the Premier League, La Liga and Argentina's top flight, was named interim head coach on 1 October. His line on taking the job was deliberately unambitious: when the simple things are done well, the team is strong. He described the role as lasting until the end of the season.

Where it stands, 23 October 2026

Tamarit is unbeaten in four. On 14 October, on Hello Kitty Night at BMO Stadium, LAFC beat Austin FC 3-1 to end a four-match winless run, Bouanga scoring in the 52nd and 67th minutes and Son setting up the first before scoring the third in the 72nd. LAFC had 28 shots to Austin's 13. It was the second capacity crowd at the stadium in four days.

Three days later at Citi Field the side drew 1-1 with New York City FC. Leo Walta, a 22-year-old Finn in his third appearance for the club, curled in a free-kick won when Son was fouled 30 yards out; Andrés Perea headed the equaliser in the 59th minute. Son hit the inside of a post in stoppage time.

That leaves LAFC sixth in the Western Conference on 46 points from 31 matches, 12 wins, 10 draws, nine defeats, 48 scored and 33 conceded — two points behind fourth-placed San Jose, with the top four taking a home first round. The season ends on Sunday 25 October at BMO Stadium against LA Galaxy, the 28th El Tráfico, with the all-time series level at 10-10-7. A win or a draw guarantees the playoff place; a defeat leaves it to other results. The Galaxy, eighth on 40 points, can still qualify, and have won one of the last six meetings. Kick-off is 6pm Pacific on Apple TV.