Son Heung-min of Los Angeles Football Club, right, controls the ball against Amaury García of Cruz Azul during the first leg of the quarterfinals at the Concacaf Champions Cup at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, California, April 7 (local time). AFP-Yonhap
Having recently suffered their first loss of the 2026 season, Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) and their Korean superstar Son Heung-min will look to bounce back and grab a ticket to the semifinals of a regional competition this week.
LAFC will visit Cruz Azul for the second leg of the quarterfinals of the Concacaf Champions Cup at Estadio Cuauhtemoc in Puebla, Mexico. The match will kick off at 9 p.m. Tuesday (local time), or 10 a.m. Wednesday (South Korea time).
LAFC are in the driver’s seat against the defending Concacaf champions after handily winning the first leg 3-0 last week. It made LAFC the first U.S.-based club to defeat a defending champion in the tournament’s 64-year history.
Son opened the scoring with his first open-play goal of the year and then made the “blah blah” gesture with his hand, apparently taking jabs at his critics.
Prior to that match, Son had been held to one penalty goal for the season — scored in the opening round of the Concacaf tournament on Feb. 17. Son had also failed to score for Korea in the national team’s friendly matches against Ivory Coast and Austria, further fueling the narrative that he had lost a step at age 33.
With Son sitting out, LAFC fell to Portland Timbers 2-1 in their latest Major League Soccer (MLS) match Saturday for their first loss of 2026. LAFC had five wins and one draw in MLS play prior to that loss without having conceded a goal.
Son and other veterans were held out of that match and should be well rested against Cruz Azul.
Even a draw will send LAFC to the semifinals and push Son a step closer to his first trophy with LAFC following his arrival last August. LAFC were eliminated in the Western Conference semifinals in last year’s MLS playoffs.
LAFC will also advance if they lose the second leg by 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 3-1 or 4-1. A 4-1 Cruz Azul victory will result in a 4-4 tie in the aggregate score, but LAFC will still advance thanks to the away goals rule.
LAFC have scored in nine consecutive away matches in the Concacaf Champions Cup, tying the longest such streak by an MLS club since 2008.
If Cruz Azul win their home leg 3-0, it will tie the series at 3-3 on aggregate, with neither team having scored an away goal. In that case, the teams will play two 15-minute periods of extra time, followed by penalties if necessary.
In the round of 16, two MLS clubs won the first legs against Mexican opponents before getting thrashed in the second legs in Mexico.
San Diego FC took a 3-2 lead into the second leg against Deportivo Toluca FC and then fell 4-0 in the away match to be eliminated. FC Cincinnati defeated Tigres UANL 3-0 at home to open their series before losing 5-1 in the second leg in Mexico.
This year’s Concacaf Champions Cup began with 27 clubs from the United States, Mexico, Canada, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dominican Republic. Four teams each from the U.S. and Mexico are competing in the quarterfinals.
