LOS ANGELES -- You see Son before you even get to the game. Larger than life, gazing down on you from a dozen billboards rising above Exposition Park.
He’s been there - like a monolithic neighbor - for the better part of a month, his infectious smile hiding behind PR-manufactured stoicism. But last night, Son Heung-min finally arrived in the flesh. And in his first home game as an LAFC player, he was the one who had Angelenos smiling.
They needed little encouragement. Despite suffering a 1-2 defeat to San Diego FC, It was clear why this sell out crowd of 22,937 had shown up. Why the flyers offered at the gates had his face on it. Why I saw more Korean flags in the stands than I see in Koreatown. And why fans who had never been to a soccer game before suddenly decided to show up.
It wasn’t because of the burgeoning rivalry. Or that San Diego FC was sitting atop the West. Or that LAFC was only four spots back with three games in hand. It was all because of Son Heung-min.
A Korean national hero, Son isn’t just the most expensive signing in MLS history, he’s also the most famous Asian athlete in the world. In that sense, the revelry surrounding the game needed no explanation.
Still, there are numerous soccer icons who have plied their trade in Southern California and few (if any) were as eagerly embraced. In fact, just this summer, as Son was coming in, former France international and World Cup Winner Olivier Giroud was on his way out. Yet mention his name to your average SoCal sports fan and you’re likely to be met with befuddlement. Meanwhile Son - a perennial sidekick at Spurs with barely a title to his name - has arrived to something nearing mania. Which begs the question: why?
One could reduce this head-over heels romance to a mere demographic calculation. Like Shohei Ohtani, having an East-Asian superstar in the largest Asian market outside of Asia makes for inevitable enthusiasm. But try as he might, Ohtani isn’t Son - and baseball isn’t soccer.
The opposite side of the cross-cultural coin, soccer is an importer’s game in an exporter’s market. Unlike baseball, its regional boundaries don’t lie overseas but instead are drawn right here, in the United States.
A sports-mad behemoth that has yet to truly adopt the global game, America is, in many ways, soccer’s great frontier. And perhaps, therein lies the key to this anomalous love affair.
Los Angeles has always been a place on the edge of the frontier. A city at the end of the line that still looks forward, perpetually stuck in a future of what-ifs. Where the old is made new again and the new is made possible.
So when it comes to a star as paradoxically global and niche as Son, his incongruous endeavor into American soccer feels remarkably kindred.
As the powers that be tirelessly try to transform America into the soccer paradise they feel it destined to be, it’s unicorns like Son who may lead them to the promised land. Beckham, Zlatan, Messi - all have provided the public with their own incredible spectacle. But Son? Well, he feels like family.
As Tiffany, a native Korean-Angeleno explained, Son’s debut wasn’t just her first LAFC game, but her first soccer match entirely. And while she hoped for Son to do well on the field, she really came out “to just cheer him on.” I asked if she thought others felt the same. “I think all of us do,” she said.
Us. Tiffany clarified it wasn’t Korean Americans, or soccer fans, or even LAFC fans that she was referring to. Instead, it was everyday Angelenos. The very people soccer power brokers are so desperately trying to reach.
If Tiffany spoke too soon, then Son failing to produce (his best chance culminating in a shot that thwacked the far post in the 78th minute) and LAFC losing 1-2 on the night might prove to be both the first and last game she goes to.
But if he truly manages to capture the hearts of everyday Angelenos the way Tiffany suggested, then Son - and soccer - could end up feeling right at home.