Son Heung-min's Move to LAFC: A New Challenge in MLS
Son Heung-min sat in London and laughed off the idea at first.
Los Angeles? MLS? Not yet.
“When I was in London, my agent told me that LAFC were interested in me,” he recalled on the podcast “The Late Run,” released Friday. “At the time, I thought, ‘Why would I go to MLS already? I’m definitely not going.’”
For a player who had come through Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga and then become a star at Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League, the move did not make sense. Son saw MLS as a place veterans chose when their legs had gone, a final stop rather than a fresh chapter.
He was still a leading forward in one of the world’s toughest leagues. Across South Korea and Europe, the assumption was simple: Son belonged in Europe’s top five leagues, and would stay there.
Yet a year from the end of his Spurs contract, the feeling changed.
A new challenge, a persistent suitor
Son had spent a decade in North London, carrying Tottenham’s attack and wearing the captain’s armband. The routine, the pressure, the expectations — all familiar. Maybe too familiar.
“When I had one year left on my contract, I felt that I needed a new challenge,” he said.
That was when LAFC’s interest stopped being background noise and became a real option. The club had tracked him for a long time, and they pushed to prove it. His agent urged him to at least listen.
“My agent suggested that I have a meeting with LAFC, so we spoke over Zoom,” Son said. “I realized that LAFC had been following me for a long time, and I could feel how genuine their interest was. That made me decide to move.”
The Zoom call flipped the narrative. What Son had dismissed as a semi-retirement move started to look like a serious football project, one built around him rather than built past him.
By last summer, he walked away from Tottenham after 10 years and signed for LAFC, a decision that stunned fans in South Korea and across Europe. Many believed he still had plenty to give at the very top of the European game. Son believed he had something else to prove.
MLS, up close, looks different
If his perception of MLS had been shaped from afar, the reality on arrival in Los Angeles hit quickly.
“I didn’t know much about MLS before coming here, but I was surprised and happy to see the stadiums packed for every game,” he said.
The full stands, the noise, the sense of occasion — they cut against the old stereotype he himself had held. For Son, who had played World Cups and Champions League nights, the energy felt real, not manufactured.
And that, in his view, is where the responsibility now lies.
“After the World Cup, it is now the responsibility of the players and the league to keep that momentum going,” he said.
From Hamburg to London to Los Angeles, Son’s career has traced the modern football map. The next question is no longer why he went to MLS.
It’s what he and LAFC can build there now that he has.
