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| Still mid-orgasm. Started in 2021. |
[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]
Thumbnail History
With this post, this project arrives at the first team to play in MLS for less than a decade; Los Angeles FC has just six seasons behind them. It also gets to why, for all its shortcomings, the Joy Points Scale (methodology at the bottom of the post*) holds up all right. LAFC has enjoyed as much success as any team in the league over those six seasons. To do the math: they won one Supporters’ Shield, one MLS Cup, plus they made an unsuccessful trip to another Cup (the season just ended, in fact), and they made the playoffs in five seasons of six and, if memory serves, people and pundits read them as a bona fide contender for four of those playoff runs…
…also, what a bunch of assholes.
That’s good enough for them to rank eighth all-time on the janky little scale I concocted for this series – which gets to another truth about the American top-flight – i.e., that somewhere just shy of 20 teams have enjoyed either fleeting success or no success at all. LAFC, meanwhile, doesn’t have a history, not really, hence the temptation to roll Chivas USA into the mix and call it the history of LA's "other team." I dismissed that for the same reason I’m not counting the Miami Fusion as part of Inter Miami CF’s history. Just totally different animals in both cases.
Best Season(s)
A fucking no-brainer, obviously: they won the double in 2022 and capped off the Shield by winning what was arguably the best, wildest MLS Cup in league history (and pour one out for the Philadelphia Union for that loss). I’ve never experienced such a thing with any team I’ve followed in any sport, but imagine it feels like an orgasm after tantric sex.
Long-Term Tendencies
LAFC has a short, proud history of scoring tons of goals. Their 2019 team holds second-place for goals scored in a single season (at 72), but they’ve either been very over or very, very over the average for goals scored in, again, five of their six seasons. They even scored very over the average in the one season they missed the playoffs (2021), but even that’s a little weird given that they had a worse defensive record in MLS’s weirdest season, aka, 2020. Still, and not unlike the team as a whole, LAFC’s defenses have generally been good.
Identity: Daddy bought it for me, isn’t it nice? Your daddy is poor and smelly.
Joy Points: 16 Think of all the teams below them and shudder.
A Half Dozen Names to Know (because why do 10 for a team that hasn't been around that long?)
Carlos Vela
The team talisman from LAFC’s Year One to…I’m guessing opinions vary on that, and often the Captain (though he was “vice-captain” to Gareth Bale in 2022, and what the fuck is that?). Blessed with a Swiss-Army knife of a left foot that set the single-season record for goals scored in 2019 at 34 goals (I’m betting that puppy stands for a season or ten), Vela’s signing gifted this young team a star of historic proportions…even if he’s slowed down a bit and reasonably so.
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| Lara Tump's blink means it's time to roll... |
Eduard Atuesta
Over their first couple seasons, LAFC’s midfield straight-up bullied teams in a way I haven’t seen before or since, just rolled ‘em like drunks. Atuesta had partners in crime in Mark-Anthony Kaye and Latif Blessing, but I recall him as the most gifted of the bunch. It’s like the other two held defenses up while Atuesta shivved ‘em. (Huh, he played for LAFC longer than I thought…)
Jose Cifuentes
I’m using Cifuentes as a stand-in for the kind of talent LAFC’s scouts have been able to find since joining MLS. I remember thinking he looked raw to the point of being sloppy when he joined them - but how many 20-year-olds don’t? – but the way scouts keep circling tells the real story.
Ilie Sanchez
A late arrival that doubles as an explainer to how well LAFC have managed the kind of tinkering rebuilds that any team that wants to stay at the top needs to manage. While Sanchez puts in a midfielder’s worth of legwork in every game, I doubt he could hold the relentless pace their 2018-2019 teams did; then again, I doubt any of the three had Sanchez’ savvy and range of passing.
Ryan Hollingshead
Another late addition (Hollingshead arrive in 2022), LAFC’s current right has given them a decent defender and pretty reliable an X-factor in the attack since coming on – and what team doesn’t want that? He repaid the faith/concept by kicking LAFC off to two good starts in the 2023 playoffs…then again, as noted immediately below (and further down), this cuts both ways.
Denis Bouanga
The latest big thing for MLS’s flashiest (bastard) team, Bouanga had a loud shout for the best winger in the MLS last season and he unquestionably carried LAFC to MLS Cup and even kept them in it (oh, and he won the 2023 Golden Boot). I knew he was fast and had a shot and range of passing the blended power and subtlety, but it took the playoff run for me to appreciate how damn strong he is physically. Rode challenges like a fucking surfer…which makes him another testament to LAFC’s knack (and checkbook and international cache) for drawing talent.
Where They Finished in 2023 & What the Past Says About That, If Anything
At MLS Cup, if staring at champions’ stage from a distance, but also in a semi-soft eighth place overall and with goals-for numbers that fell short of LAFC’s historic norms. For perspective, they scored just three more goals than Houston Dynamo FC over the regular season and, but for Bouanga’s output (he scored over 1/3 of their goals)…again, the man put this team on his broad French back and it’s enough to make you wonder how much he’s asking for and why won’t they pay it? (Rumors have him shopping offers.) For what it’s worth, I was never sold on 2023 LAFC and strongly suspect that the general weakness of MLS’s Western Conference opened, and may have pave, their path to MLS Cup 2023…which, for me, they never looked much like winning.
Notes/Impressions on the Current Roster/State of Ambition
First things first, this is not LAFC’s current roster (at time of typing, likely beyond), because they are miles over multiple roster limits. Moreover, their homepage (currently) features articles titled “Part of Our History / Thank You Diego Palacios,” in both English and Spanish (also, as observed above, LAFC has no history) and just “Hugo Lloris” with some old French dude pumping his fists. All that said, change is clearly coming to LAFC’s roster and to an extent that actually makes me wary about swinging too hard into what they will and won’t have by the time First Kick 2024 comes around. Between what sound like substantiated rumors (and aren’t those just reports?) that players like Kellyn Acosta and Maxime Crepeau are on their way out, and with players like Carlos Vela, Ilie Sanchez and Giorgio Chiellini aging out (and, dammit, I really loved having Chiellini around for a minute; some aging stars make MLS better), and Bouanga doing some hard-bargaining, that’s literally seven starters from LAFC’s MLS Cup 2023 line-up either eyeing or contemplating the exit.
Against that, LAFC is vividly ambitious and, again, they have the resources and the city to attract…a pretty fucking respectable level of world-class talent. They’ve had clear success with minor rebuilds, but now might be the time to see what they do with a major one…and starting with an aging French ‘keeper, no matter how talented, doesn’t readily present as long-term vision.
* Joy Point Index
Winning the CONCACAF Champions’ League: 5 points
Claiming Supporters’ Shield : 4 points
Winning MLS Cup: 3 points
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2 points
Winning the U.S. Open Cup: 2 points
Winning CONCACAF Champions Cup: 2 points
MLS Is Back Cup: 2 points (yeah, yeah, I’m a Timbers fan; still, that was a tough one)
CONCACAF Champions League Semifinalist: 1 point
Making the Playoffs: 1 point
Missing the Playoffs: -1 point
Missing Playoffs in 1996-97, 2002-2004 (when 80% of the league qualified): - 2 points
Wooden Spoon: -3 points
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