LOS ANGELES: Son Heung-min agreed to a contract with Los Angeles FC on Tuesday, finalizing his move to Major League Soccer after a decade at Tottenham Hotspur.
The 33-year-old South Korean superstar forward is joining LAFC three days after he formally announced his decision to leave Tottenham.
Son attended LAFC’s Leagues Cup match against Tigres at BMO Stadium on Tuesday night, watching from a luxury suite. LAFC will formally introduce Son at a news conference Wednesday, but the club showed the forward on the stadium video board late in the first half as he waved to roaring fans thrilled by their team’s landmark acquisition.
LAFC, a deep-pocketed club with significant team success in its first eight seasons of existence, reportedly paid a transfer fee of more than $20 million, which could end up being the most ever for an MLS move.
Son was a beloved presence at Spurs, scoring 173 goals in 454 competitive appearances for the North London club while rising to global prominence with his combination of speed, playmaking skill and finishing acumen.
The captain was given a memorable farewell last week in Seoul during Tottenham’s exhibition match against Newcastle, getting a guard of honor from both teams and tearfully exiting in the second half while nearly 65,000 fans roared.
But South Korea’s most popular athlete — and almost certainly the greatest Asian soccer player in history — has chosen an auspicious stage for the next chapter of his groundbreaking career.
Los Angeles has the world’s largest ethnic Korean population outside Korea, with the city’s vibrant Koreatown district sitting just a couple of miles from LAFC’s BMO Stadium.
LAFC is undoubtedly hoping to market Son as a soccer counterpart to the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, albeit on a smaller scale. Ohtani, the three-time MLB MVP from Japan who is on a trajectory to become the greatest Asian player in baseball history, draws fans from across the Pacific Rim to Dodger Stadium while attracting millions in sponsorships and partnerships for the Dodgers.
Son’s move to California also puts him in position to make an impact on and off the field at the World Cup, which will be held across North America in 2026. Son, the captain of his national team, already has said he will play in his fourth World Cup.
After leading Tottenham to its first European trophy in decades by winning the Europa League in May in a fitting cap to his English career, Son will go straight into the MLS Cup race when suits up for his new club. LAFC currently sits sixth in the Western Conference at 10-6-6, but with multiple games in hand on every team in front of it because of its participation in the Club World Cup.
Son’s seven Premier League goals last season were his fewest since his Tottenham debut, but he still appears to have the pace and skill necessary to be a difference-maker at any level. He also turned 33 only a month ago, putting him on the younger end of the global stars recently arriving in MLS.
Lionel Messi and Marco Reus were 35 and Luis Suárez was 37 when they went stateside in recent years, while Olivier Giroud and Hugo Lloris were both 37 when they joined LAFC last year.
Son will be reunited in Los Angeles with longtime Tottenham teammate Lloris, who has been outstanding since becoming LAFC’s goalkeeper last season.
High-scoring French forward Denis Bouanga is the only designated player currently under contract for LAFC, and general manager John Thorrington has been criticized by some fans for not using the full power of his financial resources this season. LAFC spent months on an ultimately failed attempt to get France’s Antoine Griezmann to leave Atlético Madrid.
Bouanga and Son have both thrived on the left wing during their careers, but Son likely has more positional versatility than Bouanga, making him a candidate to line up in the middle or even on the right wing.
Son seems to be an infinitely better fit for LAFC than Giroud, who moved to Lille last month after one disappointing year in California. LAFC plays a counterattacking, speed-based style that didn’t suit Giroud’s goal-scoring strengths, while Son should be right at home in such a system.
But LAFC also could alter its style in the winter after coach Steve Cherundolo departs for Germany following four largely successful seasons highlighted by an MLS Cup championship.
Son Heung-min signs with MLS’ Los Angeles FC after a decade at Tottenham
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Son Heung-min signs with MLS’ Los Angeles FC after a decade at Tottenham
- Son Heung-min agreed to a contract with Los Angeles FC on Tuesday, finalizing his move to Major League Soccer after a decade at Tottenham Hotspur
- The 33-year-old South Korean superstar will join LAFC as a designated player after the club paid a reported fee of more than $20 million
Rublev marches on, Bublik and Draper fall at Dubai Tennis Championships
- No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev, the 2022 champion, dispatches Ugo Humbert in epic three setter 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-3
- Tallon Griekspoor upsets No. 2 seed Alexander Bublik in straight sets to set-up quarterfinal clash with No. 6 seed Jakub Mensik
DUBAI: Andrey Rublev signaled his determination to reclaim the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships title on Wednesday, as the ruthless Russian dispatched fellow former champion Ugo Humbert in a titanic, three-set tussle on center court.
As a two-time finalist in Dubai and the winner there in 2022, Rublev already has fond memories of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium. Meanwhile Humbert, who has also tasted success in Dubai having edged Alexander Bublik to the title in 2024, was looking to tame a second former winner in the space of 24 hours after eliminating reigning champion Stefanos Tsitsipas on Tuesday.
In the early stages of the match a smattering of vocal young fans stirred up an endless cacophony of noise from all four grandstands as the near-capacity crowd repeatedly serenaded both players with cries of “Let’s go, Andrey” and “Allez, Ugo,” the even split among the supporters mirroring the evenly matched contest.
The nail-biter of a match went with serve for the first six games before, as is so often the case in professional tennis, the seventh proved to be a critical turning point. Rublev took advantage of two break points afforded by a pair of uncharacteristic double-faults by Humbert to achieve what Tsitsipas had failed to do in the entirety of their Round of 32 clash: he broke the Frenchman.
The set then resettled into a familiar pattern as the pair once again held serve amid minimal threats. And so, after 41 minutes of the back-and-forth, Rublev claimed the opening set 6-4 courtesy of that sole break of serve.
The second set mirrored the first, this time with both players avoiding a break of serve, until Humbert, the current world No. 37, narrowly edged the tiebreak 7-5 to even the match.
With very little separating the battling duo at this point, their seesaw duel was akin to two prize fighters exchanging punches with neither able to land a decisive blow. Buoyed no doubt by the feverish support from their respective fans, both players refused to buckle.
But then, with the third set tied at 1-1, Rublev held serve, broke and held again to win three straight games and move 4-1 ahead. The match then, predictably, once again went with serve until it was 5-3.
Then Humbert, facing the prospect of elimination, suddenly found himself with two break points as his opponent wobbled while serving for the match. The steely Russian held his nerve, however, and dispatched a trio of massive serves, including two aces, to reverse the deficit and set up his first match-point.
That was all the 28-year-old needed, as another huge serve forced a Humbert error and sealed the match 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-3.
“It was a very dramatic ending,” Rublev said. “I’m really happy I was able to keep going and save the last game.
“It’s difficult to close a match; you can make a double-fault or a mistake, but I made three good serves and that helped me a lot. It’s much easier to win points from the serve than playing rallies every time.”
He commended his opponent, saying: “Ugo played really well. I took my two break chances but he served unbelievably all match. He shoots super hard and very fast, so it’s not easy to do something. I had to be ready for the one chance to break him in a set, and I got those chances and was able to do it.
“This match gives me a lot of confidence, so we’ll see what will happen in the quarterfinal. I’m playing well, so let’s see.”
Rublev now faces another Frenchmen, Arthur Rinderknech, who emerged victorious from a grueling three-set marathon against the British No. 4 seed, Jack Draper, 7-5, 6-7, 6-4.
Their match, which finished well after midnight and with an eerie mist hovering over center court, yielded only two breaks of serve, both of which went Rinderknech’s way. Despite the defeat, Draper can head home with his head held high as his return to top-level tennis continues after a six-month injury layoff.
On the new court 1, Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands pulled off the biggest upset of the day by taming No. 2 seed Alexander Bublik in straight sets 6-3, 7-5. The win earned the world No. 25 a quarterfinal encounter with No. 6 seed Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic, who made short work of the Australian, Alexei Popyrin 6-3, 6-2.
