Son Heung-min's Surprising Move to LAFC

Son Heung-min did not picture his career in Los Angeles. Not at first.

When his agent first mentioned that Los Angeles FC were circling, the Tottenham Hotspur captain brushed it aside. MLS, in his mind, was where stars went to ease into retirement, not where a forward still shining in the Premier League packed his boots.

“I thought, ‘Why would I go to MLS already? I’m definitely not going,’” Son recalled on the podcast “The Late Run,” whose latest episode dropped on Friday.

This is a player who came through at Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga, then spent a decade at Tottenham in the glare of the EPL. For years he lived inside two of Europe’s heavyweight competitions, judged against the best and often outshining them. Against that backdrop, his skepticism about MLS felt almost inevitable.

From reluctance to a new challenge

The turning point came with a ticking clock: one year left on his Spurs contract.

By then, Son had become a fixture in North London, a fan favourite and one of the Premier League’s most reliable forwards. Leaving that behind, while still clearly good enough for Europe’s top five leagues, seemed an unlikely twist.

But the noise from Los Angeles did not fade. It grew.

“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.”

What began as a flat refusal slowly turned into curiosity, then into conviction. The call from LAFC was not a late-career vanity project. It was a plan, built over time, for Son to become the face of a club and a league still desperate to raise its global ceiling.

With a year left on his deal, the need for a fresh test started to bite.

“When I had one year left on my contract, I felt that I needed a new challenge,” he said. The words are simple, but for a player embedded so deeply at Tottenham, they mark a major emotional shift.

Last summer, he made it real. After 10 years at Spurs, Son walked away and signed for LAFC. In South Korea, and across Europe, the reaction mixed surprise with disbelief. Why MLS, and why now?

MLS through new eyes

The answer only fully formed once he landed in the United States.

Son arrived with old assumptions in his luggage. They did not last long.

“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 crowds, the noise, the sense that this is a league on the rise rather than a slow fade — it all challenged his earlier view of American soccer. What he once saw as a soft landing has revealed itself as a demanding stage, with growing expectations and a fanbase hungry for more.

The World Cup boom across North America has only sharpened that edge. Son feels that weight.

“After the World Cup, it is now the responsibility of the players and the league to keep that momentum going,” he said.

From dismissing MLS to embracing a central role in its next chapter, Son’s move to LAFC has become more than a late-career detour. It is a bet — on himself, on the league, and on the idea that the game’s future power bases might not all sit in Europe.