LAFC’s 2025 season was proceeding well enough through early August. The Black & Gold had a 10W-6L-6D record in MLS play and stood in sixth place in the Western Conference with games in hand on the top five clubs. Then on a Tuesday night in August, Son Heung-Min showed up in a suite at BMO Stadium during LAFC’s Leagues Cup victory over Tigres. The next day the South Korean megastar put on a black and gold shirt and told the world that he was in LA to stay. Nothing was the same after that. Nothing will be the same going forward.
Not only would Son fulfill the expectations that come with his standing as a world-class attacker, not only would he endear himself to LA’s vast Korean population—and to LAFC supporters in general— he would build an immediate rapport with LAFC’s perennial MVP candidate, Denis Bouanga. For LAFC’s opponents, the results were devastating.
Together, Son and Bouanga accounted for 25 goals and eight assists after Son joined the club (including playoffs), leading LAFC to record of 9W-2L-4T to close out the season. Between late August and early October Son and Bouanga combined to score 18 straight goals for LAFC, setting a new MLS record for most consecutive goals scored by two teammates. They made LAFC the first club in MLS history to have a player record a hat trick in three consecutive games.
“I don’t think we have ever seen a strike duo in MLS enjoy a start quite like Son Heung-Min and Denis Bouanga,” former USMNT and MLS forward Charlie Davies wrote in an essay for the New York Times. “ They clearly have a great understanding already and crucially have shown a real delight in each other’s goals.”
“It's like ‘Stepbrothers,’” said Apple TV MLS analyst Dax McCarty, another USMNT and MLS veteran, referencing the 2008 Will Ferrell-John C. Reilly comedy. “‘Did we just become best friends?’ ‘Yep.’ And that's on the field, that's off the field, all of it.”
BROTHERLY LOVE
Last year’s Bouanga & Son partnership earned the nickname “Heung-Bu Duo,” which draws from the classic Korean folk tale of Heungbu and Nolbu, two brothers who are rewarded for their kindness and generosity.
“Sonny is a very good player and a very good pal on the field and outside the field,” Bouanga told the LA Times last September. “This connection that we have, this chemistry, it was automatic.”
Headed into 2026—as LAFC seeks its second MLS Cup trophy, its fifth straight top-four finish, and its fifth straight season of reaching at least the conference semifinals in the MLS Cup Playoffs (no other club has reached these heights in each of the last four years)—the follow-up to “Heung-Bu Duo (2025)” appears destined for even greater heights now that Son has a full preseason to bond with Bouanga, new head coach Marc Dos Santos, and the rest of the team.
Both players have been part of effective attacking tandems before.
The record-setting combination of Son and his former Tottenham teammate Harry Kane stands as the most prolific goal-scoring twosome in Premier League history. Son and Kane provided 47 assists to one another and scored 340 total goals. “Son played alongside Harry Kane for years,” Davies said, “so understanding unselfishness and space was not going to be an issue. He’s comfortable across the pitch, on the right, on the left, or playing centrally.”
Bouanga had an accomplice of his own in LAFC legend Carlos Vela, who before his recent retirement provided more assists to Bouanga than any other LAFC player (eight), helping Bouanga surpass him last year to become the Black & Gold’s all-time leading scorer (101 goals).
But what Son and Bouanga did together over just three months last season sets them apart.
Eleven (11) of Bouanga’s career-high 24 goals were scored after Son joined him on the pitch. They assisted one another five times – not counting the late penalty kick Son earned in Chicago, which he gave to Bouanga (who converted).
Son, one of three finalists for MLS Newcomer of the Year, registered 12 goals and four assists in just 13 games in 2025 (including MLS Cup Playoffs), making a goal contribution every 68.9 minutes, second only to 2025 MLS MVP Lionel Messi. Having the league’s top scorer over the last three seasons on his side (Bouanga netted an MLS-best 64 goals from 2023 to 2025) opened spaces where there should have been none.
By season’s end Bouanga and Son were the only two teammates in the top five in MLS in goal contributions per minute, including playoffs.
1. Lionel Messi, Inter Miami |
1 goal contribution every 47 mins. |
2. Son Heung-Min, LAFC |
1 goal contribution every 68.9 mins. |
3. Anders Dreyer, SD |
1 goal contrib. every 78.8 mins. |
4. Danny Musovski, SEA |
1 goal contrib. every 81.1 mins. |
5. Denis Bouanga, LAFC |
1 goal contrib. every 81.8 mins. |
RETURNING CAST
This year, for the first time in club history, LAFC’s preseason roster includes every player who started the last game of the previous season.
That roster includes LAFC’s third leading scorer in ’25, Nathan Ordaz (8g/7a in all competitions), plus another MLS Under 22 selection David Martínez (6g/4a), and top assist man Mark Delgado (career-high nine MLS assists last season).
Read: Roster Rundown 2026
“They're really dangerous,” Vancouver forward Brian White said before his Whitecaps eliminated LAFC on penalties from the 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs. “It's no secret with Bouanga and Son how dangerous they can be. And then the rest of the team, how well they complement each other.”
The club also retains flexibility in personnel and shape on its back line, potentially shifting from four defenders to three depending on the circumstances. “It's no surprise why [2025 head coach] Steve Cherundolo decided to add a third center back and make sure to allow Son and Bouanga to go and do their thing,” McCarty said. “And the three centerbacks who closed out the season for the Black & Gold, “[Ryan] Porteous, [Nkosi] Tafari, and [Eddie] Segura, [were] excellent."
Factor in new additions Jacob Shaffelburg (career-best four goals last year for Nashville), attacking midfielder Amin Boudri (eight goals in 48 appearances in Sweden’s top division), and former Galaxy man Tyler Boyd (who scored twice against LAFC in 2023), and the danger only grows.
“When LAFC have Bouanga, Son and a third attacking player,” McCarty said, “that makes it a really, really difficult task to cover the width of the pitch, to cover these various different options that they have in transition moments.”
The most lethal transition weapon remains Bouanga, who has finished in the Top 2 of the MLS Golden Boot standings in each of the last three seasons. (No other MLS player has finished in the Top 5 in each of those three years.) Since his arrival in the summer of '22, Bouanga has scored 101 goals in 151 matches across all competitions for LAFC.
Like Bouanga's, “Son’s game is perfectly suited for MLS,” said Davies. “We saw him do it for years with Tottenham: thriving in transition, running in space and playing on the counter. The only real question was whether he could keep up with the physical demands of MLS … to ensure he and Bouanga were healthy and firing come playoff time. Well, he’s answered that.”
Now the urgent questions are being asked in opposing changing rooms.
In December, Charles Boehm of MLS called Son and Bouanga “a dominant force that thrilled crowds at BMO Stadium and beyond. It took a triple post and some star-crossed penalty kicks in Vancouver to extinguish their playoff run, and smart money has LAFC in the MLS elite come 2026.”
LAFC kicks off its 2026 MLS regular season on February 21, against Inter Miami, at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The Black & Gold’s home opener at BMO Stadium is scheduled for March 7 against FC Dallas. Visit the club’s 2026 schedule and season ticket membership page for more information.
