{"id":133640,"date":"2025-08-10T06:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T06:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/133640\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T06:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T06:04:07","slug":"electric-debut-son-heung-min-makes-instant-impact-for-lafc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/133640\/","title":{"rendered":"Electric debut! Son Heung-Min makes instant impact for LAFC\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. \u2013 The Son Heung-Min<\/a> era in Major League Soccer is officially underway.<\/p>\n

Just three days after being unveiled as LAFC<\/a>‘s newest player at BMO Stadium, Asia\u2019s biggest soccer star made his debut in front of a sold-out Chicago crowd. In a lightning-quick turn of events, Son travelled to the Windy City, was cleared to play a day before the game, and came off the bench in the 61st minute at SeatGeek Stadium.<\/p>\n

And he wasted no time making his presence felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoyed it,\u201d Son said postgame, of his first MLS gameday experience. \u201cI\u2019ve never had this welcoming at an away game. It was nice to see that people are celebrating and people are enjoying the football. I love to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shop for your Son Heung-Min jersey<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Straight into the action<\/p>\n

On the field, Son brought a new energy to LAFC\u2019s rotated attack, giving a boost alongside fellow Designated Player Denis Bouanga<\/a>, who came on as a halftime substitute.<\/p>\n

In a back-and-forth game and with his new team trailing 2-1 following a goal from the Fire’s Jonathan Bamba<\/a>, Son made his mark on the match in the 77th minute, drawing a penalty kick call on Chicago defender Carlos Ter\u00e1n<\/a> after breaking away with a perfectly timed burst of acceleration, setting up Bouanga’s equalizer from the spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something we draw up on the tactics board by any means,\u201d head coach Steve Cherundolo said of the sequence. \u201cThat\u2019s the game. That\u2019s why the fans come to the stadium, and I thought tonight was a very exciting match.”<\/p>\n

Son nearly made the perfect introduction in the dying minutes of added time. The 33-year-old found himself bearing down on Chris Brady<\/a>\u2019s goal in the 93rd minute, but fullback Jonathan Dean<\/a> came to the rescue, sliding in to preserve the final 2-2 scoreline<\/a> and secure a point for Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis following is worldwide, and there\u2019s a reason for it; he\u2019s phenomenal,\u201d defender Ryan Hollingshead<\/a> said. \u201cYou saw him come in for 20, 30 minutes and change the game for us, and offer something different than what we had.<\/p>\n

“And that\u2019s why we brought him in, because he\u2019s still performing at a high level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n More to come<\/p>\n

While the stadium was mostly filled with a field of red, the strong LAFC traveling support made their presence known with a noticeable roar upon Son\u2019s introduction.<\/p>\n

Fans wearing South Korea, Tottenham Hotspur, and Bayer 04 Leverkusen kits throughout the crowd were no different, greeting MLS\u2019s newest sensation to North American soccer, some with tears in their eyes at the historic moment.<\/p>\n

Tonight, the league got a peek at Son\u2019s creative ingenuity and quality, and LAFC will now count on their new DP in their chase for a second MLS Cup.<\/p>\n

With his debut out of the way and 11 games to go in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs pursuit, Cherundolo and Co. will look to make Son their main man down the stretch as a world-class reinforcement to their already potent attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a great atmosphere here and both teams tried to win the game,\u201d Cherundolo said. \u201cTaking our chances has been an area we\u2019ve been struggling with all season, and bringing \u2018Sonny\u2019 is going to help alleviate that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. \u2013 The Son Heung-Min era in Major League Soccer is officially underway. Just three days after…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":133641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[80039,61116,44504,44204,37638,221,70907,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-133640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-chivslafc-08-09-2025","9":"tag-los-angeles-football-club","10":"tag-match-reaction","11":"tag-priority-match","12":"tag-sendtonews","13":"tag-soccer","14":"tag-son-heung-min","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115002963481045006","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}