LAFC and the White Whale: Another Run at the Champions Cup

Some trophies are chased. Others begin, quietly and stubbornly, to chase back, akin to a recurring dream.

For the Los Angeles Football Club, the CONCACAF Champions Cup has gradually taken on that second form — the prize that lingers just beyond reach, appearing again and again on the far edge of the club’s ambitions beyond Major League Soccer. Since entering the league in 2018, LAFC has rarely resembled an expansion side learning its way through unfamiliar territory. Instead, the club arrived with the urgency of an institution intent on writing its own mythology. Supporters’ Shields followed. An MLS Cup arrived. Deep playoff runs and a U.S. Open Cup triumph reinforced the sense that the Black & Gold were not merely participants in MLS, but architects of its modern era.

Yet for all the domestic triumphs, one stage has continued to offer both promise and heartbreak.

The CONCACAF Champions Cup.

For LAFC, the tournament has become something like a distant horizon — always visible, always beckoning, but never quite reached. In 2020, during the Bob Bradley era, the club authored one of the most memorable runs in the competition’s history, defeating three Liga MX giants in succession — León, Cruz Azul, and Club América — before falling 2–1 to Tigres UANL in the final. Three years later, under Steve Cherundolo, the Black & Gold returned to the same stage once more. Led by Denis Bouanga’s relentless attacking form and hunger to make his mark, LAFC again stood within sight of regional glory, only to watch Club León lift the trophy instead.

Twice they had climbed.

Twice the summit receded just as it seemed within reach.

For a club whose identity has been built around attacking football, ambitious recruitment, and the belief that trophies are not distant dreams but expected destinations, the Champions Cup has gradually taken on a deeper symbolism. It has become LAFC’s white whale — the elusive prize that continues to define the club’s unfinished story.

Now, as LAFC hosts Costa Rica’s LD Alajuelense in the Round of 16, the journey beckons again.

Yet this season carries a slightly different atmosphere around BMO Stadium. Despite an arduous opening month, the squad feels refreshed, almost quietly confident. The leadership within the group has matured, and defensively they are sharper. And with Denis Bouanga once again anchoring the attack alongside the star presence of Son Heung-min, who arrived midway through the 2025 campaign, LAFC has opened the season with a string of victories that has revived a familiar question.

Could this be the group that finally reaches the summit that has remained just beyond the club’s grasp?

The lessons of 2023 still linger in the background of LAFC’s relationship with this tournament. That season marked the first time the club truly confronted the demands of competing across multiple fronts at once. Having advanced to the CONCACAF Champions League final while simultaneously pushing deep into the MLS campaign, LAFC suddenly found itself navigating the realities of fixture congestion, long travel, and the quiet physical toll of a calendar stretched across countries and months. It was a remarkable season in many ways, but also a humbling one. The Black & Gold finished runners-up not only in the Champions League, but also in MLS Cup and the Campeones Cup — a reminder that success in modern football often depends not simply on talent, but on patience, balance, and the careful stewardship of a roster over the long arc of a season.

Several years removed from that experience, LAFC now approaches the competition with a different awareness — the kind that only comes from having lived through it before. Players who were part of that campaign, including Bouanga, understand just how narrow the margins become when facing Liga MX opposition deep into the summer months. The tournament no longer represents an unknown mountain to conquer. Instead, it feels more like a landscape the club has already traveled, one whose rhythms and challenges are now familiar, like the rolling hills of a terrain already visited.

Major League Soccer itself has changed during that time. The league increasingly moves to the rhythm of global stars, with headlines often shaped by the arrival of internationally recognizable players whose reputations stretch far beyond North America and whose careers remain firmly in their competitive prime. Clubs such as Inter Miami and Vancouver command much of the spotlight, their matches attracting attention that ripples across continents.

Yet LAFC’s approach to the Champions Cup has tended to unfold with a quieter steadiness. Despite reaching two finals and building one of the strongest tournament records among MLS sides, the Black & Gold enter this cycle without the same level of noise surrounding them. In a league increasingly driven by star power, LAFC’s strength has often come from continuity, depth, and the slow accumulation of experience — lessons gathered from coming close without yet lifting the trophy.

Their return to the tournament this year arrived in similarly understated fashion. LAFC secured its place in the 2026 Champions Cup through its finish in the 2025 Supporters’ Shield standings, placing sixth and benefiting from the cascading qualification system after other clubs secured berths through MLS Cup and Leagues Cup victories. In another year, that might have placed LAFC on the margins of the early conversation. Instead, while much of the preseason attention drifted elsewhere, the Black & Gold quietly assembled one of the league’s strongest early starts, entering the Round of 16 with a familiar possibility hovering in the background.

Perhaps the story between LAFC and this competition is not finished yet. 

Against that backdrop, the club now turns its attention toward LD Alajuelense. The Costa Rican side may not carry the same historical weight as the Liga MX giants LAFC has encountered before, but the tournament itself rarely allows for complacency. Each round represents another step along a narrow path where progress and disappointment can be separated by a single moment, especially in a two-leg format.

For head coach Marc Dos Santos and his side, the objective is no longer simply reaching the later stages of the competition. LAFC has already proven it can travel that far. The challenge now lies in managing the demands of the tournament while maintaining balance across the season — a task shaped by the lessons of earlier campaigns.

Dos Santos emphasized that the group’s focus remains narrow, match by match, rather than on the broader narrative surrounding the tournament.

“We’ve really gone game by game,” he said. “Nobody in the locker room is thinking about past games. We’re thinking about the one coming up. Every game has a different story.”

The LAFC manager noted that Alajuelense presents its own set of challenges, particularly given the two-legged nature of the series.

“They’re a complicated team,” Dos Santos said. “They’re going to try to play off our mistakes and be good in transition. This is the first half of a 180-minute game, and we need to put ourselves in the best possible position before going to Costa Rica, which we know will be a very difficult environment.”

The Champions Cup remains one of the region’s most demanding competitions precisely because of the environment surrounding it. Matches unfold across multiple countries, climates, and competitive rhythms. Liga MX clubs often enter the later rounds in the full stride of their domestic seasons, while MLS teams are still finding their footing in the early months of their own calendars. Travel, rotation, and fixture congestion have historically tilted the balance away from MLS representatives.

Yet that divide has slowly begun to narrow.

LAFC itself has been part of that shift. The club’s victories over Liga MX opponents during the 2020 run signaled that the region’s competitive order was no longer as immovable as it once seemed. Each campaign since has added another layer of experience, reinforcing the idea that success for MLS sides in this tournament is no longer theoretical.

Veteran goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, whose career has spanned the highest levels of European and international football, believes the key lies in maintaining consistency across a demanding schedule.

“We’re in a good spot,” Lloris said, “but in football everything can turn very quickly. The key is consistency in our performances and our results.”

With several matches still to navigate before the international break, Lloris stressed the importance of collective focus within the squad.

“It’s going to demand a lot from us,” he said. “We need everybody ready, committed, and involved to help the team.”

And when it comes to the Champions Cup specifically, the margin for error remains small.

“It’s all about details,” Lloris added. “We want to put ourselves in a good position for the second leg.”

For LAFC, the relationship with the Champions Cup now feels less like an urgent climb toward a distant summit and more like the steady discipline of returning to base camp — preparing, learning, and setting out again with clearer understanding each time.

The club has already glimpsed what lies higher up the mountain.

But this time, there is a different kind of patience in the air. A quiet recognition that the path must be walked step by step.

And somewhere beyond the next round, the white whale still waits.