Los Angeles Football Club, commonly referred to as LAFC, is an American professional men's soccer team based in Los Angeles, California. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The club was established on October 30, 2014, and began play during the 2018 season as an expansion team. The club plays their home matches at BMO Stadium, a soccer-specific stadium located in Exposition Park.
The managing owners of the club are Brandon Beck, Larry Berg, and Bennett Rosenthal. Los Angeles FC also has a variety of other part-owners, such as Will Ferrell. The club's inaugural head coach was Bob Bradley, who served from 2017 to 2021. During their second season in 2019, Los Angeles FC won the Supporters' Shield with club captain Carlos Vela earning the MVP Award. In 2020, Los Angeles FC were the runners-up in the CONCACAF Champions League. The club won their first MLS Cup in 2022, which completed a league double with their second Supporters' Shield.
Since they started playing, Los Angeles FC have had a fierce rivalry with the LA Galaxy, the older of the two Los Angeles-based MLS teams. The rivalry between the two clubs has been dubbed El Tráfico by the supporters of both clubs.
History
On October 30, 2014, following the dissolution of Chivas USA, Major League Soccer awarded a new expansion team to Los Angeles. On September 15, 2015, the club announced that Los Angeles Football Club, which had previously been used as a placeholder name for the club, would be the official team name. Henry Nguyen, Los Angeles FC's principal owner at the time, hinted at this possibility shortly after the club was announced in describing the name as "timeless".
LAFC announced Bob Bradley as its head coach in July 2017, joining general director John Thorrington in a search for players. Mexican forward Carlos Vela was signed as the club's first designated player on August 11, 2017.
On March 4, 2018, LAFC played its first MLS game, a 1–0 win against Seattle Sounders FC at CenturyLink Field in Seattle. LAFC designated player Diego Rossi scored the club's first-ever competitive goal in the 11th minute, assisted by Vela.
On March 31, 2018, LAFC suffered its first MLS loss, giving up a 3–0 lead to lose 4–3 to LA Galaxy in the MLS debut of Zlatan Ibrahimović. LAFC was the second team ever to lose an MLS game after leading 3–0 during the match. Despite the loss, LAFC won 4 of the 6 games on their road trip to start the season, becoming the first team to earn 12 points from a season opening road trip of 6 games or more. They finished the season with 7 road wins which is the most for an expansion team in the post-shootout era.
LAFC accomplished the best regular season for an MLS expansion team, earning 57 points. The total surpassed the 56 picked up the 1998 Chicago Fire, also coached by Bob Bradley, as well as the post-shootout era record of 55 set in 2017 by Atlanta United. LAFC's seven road wins also tied for the most ever by an expansion team in the pre or post shootout-era with the '98 Fire who had two road wins come via the shootout. They finished second all-time in goals scored by an expansion team in a season, with 68, just behind Atlanta's 70.
On October 6, 2018, LAFC clinched its first playoff spot after a 3–0 victory against the Colorado Rapids finishing third in the West, but were knocked out at home in the first round in a 3–2 loss to sixth-place Real Salt Lake.
2020 CONCACAF Champions League
Los Angeles FC appeared in CONCACAF Champions League for the first time in 2020. After going down 2–0 in the first leg against Club León, LAFC came back and won 3–0 in the second leg, advancing (3–2 on aggregate) to the round of 16. Shortly after that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament was put on hold. When the tournament resumed in December, under a new one-off format, Los Angeles FC defeated Cruz Azul (2–1) after going down 1–0. In the semi-finals LAFC defeated Club América (3–1), again in comeback fashion. They became the third MLS side to advance to the Final, where they were defeated by Tigres UANL (2–1), who had been runners-up in previous editions of the tournament, and who went on to become the runners-up in the Club World Cup.