Son Heung-Min is headed to his first MLS All Star Game, Denis Bouanga is enjoying his annual summertime hot streak, Hugo Lloris keeps handing out clean sheets, and LAFC sits atop the Western Conference standings, with a marquee road matchup this Saturday and three Leagues Cup showdowns against Liga MX clubs on tap.
All in all, it’s not a bad time to be Black & Gold.
The club hasn't lost since May 17 (including an eight-week break for the FIFA World Cup). The last time LAFC lost, the Lakers had just been eliminated from the NBA Playoffs and the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani only had seven home runs. In its four straight victories (starting with its 1-0 win over Seattle on May 24) LAFC has outscored opponents 11-1 and has risen from fifth in the West to a tie for first on points (33), alongside Vancouver and San Jose.
After Saturday’s 4-0 win over Sporting KC, head coach Marc Dos Santos credited the team’s refreshed form following the World Cup to “a little bit of everything. We evaluated a lot of things during the break. I think we worked really well during the second preseason … The message is really clear, guys are understanding what we want. They're applying it very well.
“But we also know that there's a month coming here that's going to be a challenging month. The month of August with Leagues Cup and all the games, we're going to have to be ready for it.”
August will load at least eight matches onto the Black & Gold – possibly more if LAFC advances past Phase One of Leagues Cup. “But when you feel your guys are in a good moment,” Dos Santos added, “you have to go for it.”
ALL-STAR WORTHY
Son led the charge in late July, the Korean star returning from the FIFA World Cup and promptly netting three goals in LAFC’s first three matches, his first goals in MLS play to go with his 17 assists in all competitions. “It was just a matter of time,” defender and captain Aaron Long said of Son’s scoring spurt. “I'm telling you, we've been seeing it in training, the goals he's scoring. So for him to start like this and start hot, it's exactly what we wanted.”
Son leads MLS in assists, with 10, and is the only player in double figures – not counting the two own goals he created with sharp crosses that were deflected directly into opposing nets. He's been a chance-creating machine, ranking in the top five in MLS in key passes per 90 minutes (passes that lead directly to a shot on goal).
Son trained in Charlotte, NC, on Monday with the rest of the MLS All Stars ahead of their Tuesday night match against the All Stars from Liga MX. Missing from that event for the first time in his three-plus seasons with LAFC is three-time MLS All Star Denis Bouanga. Not that he doesn’t deserve to be there.
Bouanga, LAFC’s all-time leading scorer - and the league’s top goal scorer since he arrived in LA in 2022 - was named MLS Player of the Matchday after posting two goals and an assist against SKC. Only two other players have claimed Player of the Matchday honors more than once this season (L. Messi MIA; J. Hall NYRB).
Bouanga’s two strikes against SKC gave him 10 goals in 17 MLS matches this season, placing him on track to extend his MLS record of three straight 20-goal seasons, to four. Bouanga ranks seventh in the league in xG (8.68 expected goals) and has 16 goal contributions in league play (10g/6a) – only Messi (20) and Evander of FC Cincinnati (18) have more.
Together, the Son-Bouanga tandem has combined for seven goals and two assists in LAFC’s three matches since the break, conjuring memories of the “Heung-Bou Duo” days of 2025, when they terrorized MLS to the tune of 25 goals, eight assists, and just two losses over LAFC’s final 15 matches.
“If Denis and Sonny are firing, then it makes our job a whole lot easier,” said centerback Ryan Porteous. “But it's not only that, I've just been so impressed with Denis' defensive stuff in the last week. Not just last week, all season, but particularly in the last week. It's been immense, and [vs. SKC] he reaps the rewards with another two goals. I think the majority of his work has been defensively in the last few games.”
MEN IN BACK
Three of the Black & Gold’s quick-strike goals against SKC began with passes out of the back by centerbacks Long and Porteous – the heart of a Black & Gold defense that didn’t concede a shot on target until the 77th minute and helped goalkeeper Hugo Lloris earn his MLS-leading tenth clean sheet.
The key to their defensive success, Long said, has been “team defending. Tactically we're doing a really good job of sliding through in the back line. Our 8s and our 6s [midfielders] are doing a tremendous job of screening the back four, and it allows us centerbacks to be in the box and winning a lot of those crosses.”
Added Porteous: “Obviously you can look at clean sheets as the back four and the goalkeeper, and I think we've got a pretty good back four and probably the best goalkeeper, but collectively as a team when you see Denis Bouanga and [David] Martínez today, for example – but it's been Shaffelberg and Tyler Boyd in other games – when the wingers are dropping so deep to help our fullbacks out, and then just killing teams in transition – it’s what we want to see."
As for Lloris, “I'm not one for massive for self-praise or anything, but I definitely felt like Hugo was an obvious choice for [the MLS All-Star roster]," Porteous said, "with the amount of clean sheets that he's had personally, and some of the saves and the organization that he [provides]. You kind of come off a game after a clean sheet, you feel like you've made him proud.”
There’s another, more subtle brick in LAFC’s defensive wall, Porteous added. Recently signed fullback Yevhen Cheberko has played 255 of a possible 270 minutes since joining LAFC from Columbus.
“I think he brings a little bit of leadership as well that people might not see,” Porteous said of the 28-year-old Ukrainian. “He's vocal, he's technically a very good player and he's a solid defender and he's come right in – I watched his prematch [interview] and he said that the lads might not love him now, but they will. I think the lads already love him. He's a big character in there already. He's been brilliant so far.”
CO-STARRING
Attacking phenom David Martínez (above), whose defensive efforts led to LAFC’s first goal against SKC, scored the club’s third of the night and now has 10 goals this year in all competitions. The young Venezuelan scored 11 goals combined during the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
His per-minute production this season continues to astound. In MLS play Martínez has tallied six goals and two assists in just 937 minutes. He scored four goals in 381 minutes in Concacaf Champions Cup, earning that competition’s Best Young Player award. And now he’s returning to Leagues Cup, where he shined in 2025, with three goals in 230 minutes, including a scintillating, end-to-end masterpiece against Tigres.
“Maybe we can improve some things, but we have to keep going like this,” Martínez said in Spanish after the win over SKC. “We have to keep working as a team, keep improving those little things in training and in the matches in Leagues Cup. It's a good tournament, so let's make the most of it.”
And then there’s Mathieu Choinière, who made the CCC Best XI list, played for Canada in this summer’s World Cup, and has contributed two assists for LAFC in the club's three matches after the break, plus the key tackle that led to Son’s opening goal against the Galaxy – and the celebration that has come to define this current run:
“I love these guys,” Dos Santos said when asked about the team’s inclusive goal celebrations. “When I have two days off, I miss them. I love the group. I love how they are with each other. At breakfast, lunch, they hang out together. There's so much behind the scenes – if Netflix would have done something with us behind the scenes, so many details that you guys cannot see. Me? I know how they are together so when I see the celebrations on the field it's normal for me … It's a group that's coming together, it's a group that likes each other. I think we're still gonna grow.”
KEEPING TABS
LAFC Academy product Matt Evans was loaned to FC Wacker Innsbruck in Austria in early July, and has made an instant impact. The 20-year-old midfielder scored a goal in Wacker’s derby victory over rival club SVG Reichenau in the first Round of the UNIQA ÖFB Cup. Evans came on in the 65th minute and notched the final goal in Wacker’s 3-0 win.
Wearing number 22 for D.C. United of MLS, another LAFC Academy product, Nathan Ordaz, made his debut for his new club after departing LAFC in a recent cash transaction. Ordaz, 22, came on as a 67th-minute substitute and provided the equalizing assist in United’s 1-1 draw with Houston. He entered United’s next match, against Toronto, in the 85th minute, with the score tied 1-1, and helped his new side find the winner in stoppage time.
Midfielder Amin Boudri returned to his native Sweden after spending the first half of this year with LAFC. The 21-year-old attacker played the final 17 minutes for Hammarby IF in its weekend draw against IF Brommapojkarna. Boudri entered a scoreless tie; his side scored five minutes later before Brom equalized in the 90th minute.
LAFC returns to action on Saturday, August 1, when the club travels north to take on the Vancouver Whitecaps at BC Place. The match is scheduled to kick off at 4:30 p.m. PT and will be broadcast on Apple TV, as well as Coupang Play and SPOTV for fans in Korea. Local radio coverage will be available on 710 AM ESPN, the ESPN LA app, KYPA 1230 AM (Korean), and 980 AM La Mera Mera (Spanish).
