He is Employee Number One, the first and most important player in club history. Over the last seven years Carlos Vela became so much more.
The story of Vela’s return to LAFC, however, must start at the beginning, when LA’s newest pro sports team didn’t even have jerseys or a stadium. Why is his re-signing this week so relevant to the club and its forward progress?
It starts with his original press conference on August 12, 2017, when Vela told the gathered masses, “We want to be the best. That’s why I’m here.” Vela’s arrival in LA in 2017 gave LAFC a star. The league’s newest team could not be ignored with a player of his stature on its roster. He gave the club legitimacy, and an instant connection to a city that insists on championships.
Los Angeles’ Latino community—several million strong—knew him when he was a teenager, as part of the Mexican National Team’s “Golden Generation,” a promising group of boys who won the Under-17 World Cup in 2005—the first world title in the country’s history.
When Vela arrived in LA he brought hope that LAFC could win immediately. He redeemed that hope, leading his new team to a playoff bid in its first season. Hope became belief, which eventually became expectation—the Black & Gold Standard—which Vela upheld over and over, match after match, trophy after trophy, during his first six seasons in LA.
And now he’s back for the business end of 2024, and maybe, hopefully, the 2025 season. The world-class player and leader who was bold enough to aim for the highest heights from the very beginning, and brilliant enough to take LAFC there, wants more.
His on-field impact is legendary. Since playing his first league game in 2018, no MLS player has registered more combined goals and assists than Vela’s 137—even though he’s missed most of this season. The next closest player, reigning MVP Lucho Acosta, is 15 behind him.
No MLS club has more wins, points, or goals than LAFC since Vela joined the club before its inaugural season. He is the player most responsible for that.
Yet his original and most enduring legacy is the bond he created between the club and its fanbase, which, since those early days, has grown into the loudest, most notorious, and most diverse gameday supporter culture and matchday experience in the U.S. or Canada.
The binding agreement that Vela made with the people of LA (“We want to be the best. That’s why I’m here.”) is as alive today as it was when he put on a hard hat and strolled through the construction site that would become LAFC’s home ground. Back then, he believed that this new club was building something more powerful than a roster, more enduring than a stadium of brick, mortar and steel.
By believing, he made everyone else believe.
“Carlos is important to the entire LAFC community,” LAFC Lead Managing Owner Bennett Rosenthal said when Vela re-signed over the weekend. “We simply would not be who we are without him.”
Vela also helped make LAFC a destination for international football stars seeking to gild their careers in Los Angeles. He was the first in the string of iconic footballers to join LAFC after their names had become known to every soccer aficionado in the world: Vela, Bale, Chiellini, Lloris, Giroud.
Who’s next?
For now—and once again—Vela is the big-name addition. At age 35 he is not among LAFC’s three oldest players. He will work himself into full fitness without rush, having helped lay the foundation for LAFC’s strong, deep, 2024 roster, which stands poised for yet another deep playoff run.
His addition underscores the club’s commitment to winning trophies. Not individual ones, like the MVP, Golden Boot, and all the other trinkets on Vela’s mantel.
If you ask Vela, the greatest reward he earned with LAFC weighs 43 pounds, is made of sterling silver, and resides today in the stadium he first toured when it was just a patch of gravel and a dream.
Vela, remember, is the Spanish word for candle—a tiny flame burning alone in a black void. Even before Vela raised that 2022 MLS Cup trophy with his teammates, he and his club had turned that flicker into an inferno.
One that isn’t done raging just yet.
