Los Angeles Football Club will enter its inaugural Major League Soccer season in 2018, and the Seattle Sounders won’t have to wait long to meet their new Western Conference opponents. Two-time defending West champion Seattle will host LAFC at CenturyLink Field on March 4 in the Sounders’ home-opener before Seattle visits LA on April 29 for LAFC’s first match at Banc of California Stadium. Tickets for this match are available now exclusively in 2018 season ticket packages. Purchase here or call 877-MLS-GOAL for more information.
Ahead of the start of the 2018 MLS season, here is what you need to know about LAFC:
ORIGIN: Major League Soccer awarded Los Angeles a franchise on Oct. 30, 2014. The LAFC ownership group announced their plans for what would become Banc of California Stadium on May 8, 2015.
HEAD COACH: Bob Bradley. The former United States men’s national team boss will lead the expansion franchise in his return to MLS. Bradley coached the Chicago Fire from 1998-2002, the New York MetroStars from 2003-05 and Chivas USA in 2006.
EVP OF SOCCER OPERATIONS: John Thorrington. The former MLSer and U.S. international joined the LAFC staff in December 2015 and has assumed leadership over player and personnel decisions.
STADIUM: Banc of California. The 22,000-seat stadium is located in the Exposition Park area of Los Angeles and next to the storied LA Memorial Coliseum. The stadium cost $350 million and at 34 degrees, the seating is the steepest in MLS. Every seat will be within 135 feet of the pitch with the closest just 12 feet away.
CURRENT ROSTER:
GK: Tyler Miller
D: Walker Zimmerman, Laurent Ciman, Omar Gaber
MF: None
F: Carlos Vela, Diego Rossi, Marco Ureña, Rodrigo Pacheco, Latif Blessing
DESIGNATED PLAYERS: LAFC has signed two DPs already in Carlos Vela and Diego Rossi. Vela, 28, is a decorated Mexican international forward who has scored 11 goals in 55 caps for El Tri. He began his senior career at Arsenal before flourishing with Spain’s Real Sociedad where he scored 72 goals in over 200 appearances.
Rossi, 19, is the second-youngest DP in MLS history and is a Uruguayan youth international. He joins LAFC from Montevideo’s Peñarol.
DALLAS DEFENDER: LAFC acquired FC Dallas center back Walker Zimmerman on Dec. 10 in exchange for $250K in General Allocation Money, $250K in Targeted Allocation Money and the No. 1 spot in the Allocation Ranking. Zimmerman, 24, has appeared in 89 matches in five MLS seasons and had forged one of the league’s best center back pairings with Matt Hedges.
BRADLEY REUNITED WITH GABER: LAFC signed defender/midfielder Omar Gaber, 25, on a one-year loan from Swiss side FC Basel. The Egyptian international played under Bradley when he was the manager of the Pharaohs from 2011-13.
WELCOME HOME, TYLER: LAFC selected former Sounders goalkeeper Tyler Miller with the first pick in the 2017 MLS Expansion Draft. Miller made three appearances in three years in Seattle including a clean sheet on the road at the Houston Dynamo in the first leg of this past season’s Western Conference Championship.
EXPANSION DRAFT PICKS: In addition to Miller, LAFC selected Sporting Kansas City forward Latif Blessing, San Jose Earthquakes forward Marco Ureña, Columbus Crew SC defender Jukka Raitala and Toronto FC defender/midfielder Raheem Edwards. LAFC subsequently traded Raitala and Edwards to the Montreal Impact in exchange for Belgian international defender Laurent Ciman.
