Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Amin Boudri falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Los Angeles Football Club who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Kenny Nielsen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Heung-Min Son will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Los Angeles Football Club escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Heung-Min Son will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Los Angeles Football Club the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Heung-Min Son takes the afternoon — 8.59
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Heung-Min Son provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Heung-Min Son was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Out, 0‑1 to Philadelphia Union, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Denis Bouanga takes the afternoon — 8.59
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Denis Bouanga provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Amin Boudri, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.71
A mark of 7.71 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Los Angeles Football Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Smolyakov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The offer from Minnesota United FC for Heung-Min Son was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Heung-Min Son has agreed terms with LA Galaxy for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Los Angeles Football Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amin Boudri is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.