In just two months’ time, LAFC’s 2025 campaign begins.
Last year the Black & Gold’s 2024 season began with an MLS regular-season game in late February, but this year things will get going earlier by virtue of the club’s berth in Concacaf Champions Cup, the most significant international tournament in this part of the world. LAFC's opening match will be a road contest on Tuesday, Feb. 18, against the Colorado Rapids, at 8 p.m. PT, at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.
What is Concacaf Champions Cup?
Now in its 60th year, the Concacaf Champions Cup is the region's premier men’s club competition, welcoming 27 top-ranked clubs from across North America, Central America and the Caribbean.
The 2025 champion, which will be crowned following the final on June 1, will receive a berth in the 2025 FIFA Intercontinental Cup and 2029 FIFA Club World Cup, along with over $5 million in financial distributions and prize money.
This year’s participants include seven-time CCC champion Club América (MEX) and the three clubs that won Concacaf’s regional cup competitions, Columbus Crew (Leagues Cup), LD Alajuelense (Costa Rican winners of Central American Cup), and Cavalier FC (Jamaican winners of the Caribbean Cup).
In addition to LAFC, Colorado, and Columbus, seven other MLS clubs will take part.
Who and when does LAFC play?
LAFC – currently ranked sixth in the Concacaf Club Ranking Index – will face the Colorado Rapids on Tuesday, February 18, at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park near Denver. (The Rapids received a CCC bid by finishing third in Leagues Cup 2024.)
The two teams will face off again at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles on Tuesday, February 25, in the second leg of their Round 1 matchup. Kickoff times for both matches are set for 7 p.m. PT.
The team that scores the most combined goals in those two legs (known as “aggregate scoring” or “on aggregate”) will advance to the Round of 16 and a two-leg matchup with the Columbus Crew (who earned a bye in Round One by winning Leagues Cup).
The aggregate winner of that matchup will face either Inter Miami (MLS), Sporting KC (MLS), or Cavalier S.C., the Jamaican club that earned its CCC bid by winning the 2024 Caribbean Cup.
Has LAFC played in Concacaf Champions Cup before?
It has, and with great results.
LAFC advanced to the final in 2020 and 2023, when the competition was known as Concacaf Champions League.
The 2020 final was the first final in LAFC history. The single-leg championship match went down to the wire against Mexican giants Tigres UANL, and earned LAFC instant international respect in the club’s third year of existence.
LAFC advanced to the 2020 final by becoming the first MLS team in the competition’s history to beat three Liga MX teams in a single tournament.
They almost made it four. Playing without 2019 MLS Best XI midfielder Eduard Atuesta, who missed the final due to a red card ejection against Club América in the semifinal, LAFC’s Diego Rossi scored in the 61st minute to give LAFC a 1-0 lead, but mighty Tigres, Mexico’s “Team of the Decade,” found two goals over the final 20 minutes to take the title, 2-1.
Three years later, in 2023, the reigning MLS Cup champions traveled across four countries to make their way to a hard-fought final against Liga MX champs Club León.
A late Denis Bouanga goal in the first leg of the final gave LAFC hope as it carried a 2-1 aggregate deficit back to LA for the deciding second leg. LAFC, after all, had responded to a 2-0 away defeat to León in the 2020 Round of 16 by upsetting the Mexican side 3-0 in LA in the second leg to a secure a 3-2 aggregate win.
This time however, it was not to be, as Club León endured an early LAFC onslaught, found a goal through Lucas Di Yorio in the 20th minute, and hung on for a 1-0 win and its first-ever Concacaf Champions League title.
Bouanga finished as the top goalscorer in the 2023 tournament, with seven goals.
How has CCC changed since the last time LAFC was in it?
Last year’s competition, in 2024, was the first one to be played since it dropped the word “League” and became Concacaf Champions Cup. Last year was also its first season under a new format, which featured 27 teams and a five-round knockout phase.
The competition also returned to a single-leg final which determined a champion after one match instead of two. In the 2024 final, Pachuca of Liga MX defeated the Columbus Crew, 3-0, in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico, on June 1, 2024. It was Pachuca’s fourth CCC crown.
LAFC will kick off its 2025 home campaign with a match against the Colorado Rapids at BMO Stadium in the second leg of a home-and-away series in Round One of the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup. The match will be played on February 25, 2025, at 7 p.m. PT. Ticket information will be announced soon.
