Los Angeles FC secured the final spot in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup with a dramatic extra-time win Saturday at BMO Stadium.
The match drew a sold-out crowd of 20,714 fans who witnessed a historic moment for the club and Major League Soccer after LAFC only secured the equalizer in the 89th minute.
With the win, LAFC became the 32nd and final team to join FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup and will represent the United States and Concacaf in Group D of the tournament.
“It was a phenomenal atmosphere,” said Jill Ellis, FIFA’s chief football officer. “It was an incredibly loud, exciting match obviously. Congratulations to LAFC, I mean they played very well tonight and got the result. And I mean LA was going to go crazy tonight, it’s fantastic.”
LAFC will now have to face England’s Chelsea, Tunisia’s Espérance Sportive de Tunis and Brazil’s Flamengo in Group D play of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
The club will open its tournament campaign against Chelsea on June 16 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, followed by a June 20 match against Espérance at GEODIS Park in Nashville.
LAFC will then close out group play on June 24 against Flamengo at Camping World Stadium in Orlando.
“It was ‘win and in,’ and so I think both teams came and brought it tonight,” Ellis said. “Qualifying for this, I mean it’s not just massive prize money, it’s the chance to go out and compete for a title. It’s tremendous for the players and for the coach and obviously for the city of LA.”
The win marked a significant chapter in LAFC’s short but eventful history, giving the club a chance to compete on one of the world’s biggest stages.
“I think for the LAFC fans themselves to now have an opportunity, they’ve had an up and down season, to now have an opportunity to go and compete for a major title, it’s been an amazing night for them,” Ellis said.
Players shared that same sense of pride and excitement after the final whistle.
“We feel amazing,” LAFC defender Aaron Long said. “It was a hard-fought game and now we get to be in a tournament that we feel like this club has worked so hard for. We really wanted this one and it feels good knowing that it’s a great team that we played against. To come out with a victory, especially after going down 1-0, it was fantastic. What a night.”
Although it was a hard-fought match, LAFC still believed they held the upper hand for much of the game.
“I think we deserved the whole game… I think we were better than them, we dominated the game, we didn’t allow a lot of chances even if it’s a very very good team,” Sergi Palencia, LAFC right back, said. “We are so happy that today we could do it here with our people and now let’s leave with a dream there in the FIFA Club World Cup: it is a dream come true for us.”
With the 2025 Club World Cup kicking off in less than two weeks and expanding to 32 teams, LAFC will need to prepare quickly for the global stage.
