National Champs

When Omar Campos was little, growing up in the underserved community of Tepito in the heart of Mexico City, his father, also named Omar, took him to what the LAFC fullback remembered recently as “un poquito campo de tierra,” a little dirt field, to introduce his son to the game he loved.

Unfortunately for Sr. Campos, young Omar didn’t care for football, that day or in the months that followed. But his father kept taking him to that rocky patch in the city’s center, coaching Omar’s youth teams, until slowly, something caught. A spark was kindled.

📖 My Story | Omar Campos

Flash forward fifteen years or so. Campos, now 22, has moved from the biggest city in North America to the third-biggest, Los Angeles, to continue a professional career that every expert agrees has no ceiling. He comes on in the 67th minute of the U.S. Open Cup Final against Sporting Kansas City, which is tied 1-1, his teammate Olivier Giroud’s second-half goal having just been answered by SKC’s Erik Thommy.

Campos’ first seven months in LA have been enjoyable, although not always easy. His parents have been unable to travel here because of visa challenges. Other than his teammates, his longtime girlfriend Katia Estrada (a pro footballer who paused her career to come to the States with Omar) has often been his only company. Campos, considered the Mexican National Team’s left back of the future, started his first few matches with LAFC, then over the last seven months began seeing more time as a substitute. “I lack a little confidence,” he explained recently in Spanish. “The truth is that [MLS] is very different, the style of play is very touch and move, which I was not used to. I am adapting little by little.”

When Campos came on for the limping Eddie Segura in Wednesday’s championship match, LAFC had not won in its last five outings, and had fallen short in four straight finals appearances. Over the summer, however, the club had quietly inched its way to the championship match of the U.S. Open Cup, the oldest ongoing soccer competition in the country. But now they were tired. Both sides were. Sporting, like LAFC, was playing its fourth match in 12 days.

Campos, however, still looked fresh in the 102nd minute, as he loped into LAFC’s attacking third, watching teammate Cristian Olivera maintain possession at the upper corner of the penalty area despite heavy defensive pressure. In a split second the 22-year-olds arrived at the same idea—not unlike the spark that fired inside Campos on that patch of dirt in Tepito. Campos ran into space at the top of the box, executing with Olivera the kind of touch-and-move action he had struggled to grasp early on at LAFC.

Few of the 22,000 on hand expected the quiet defender to feint and charge deeper into the danger area. Fewer expected him to shoot on goal with his non-dominant right foot. Given the scarcity of chances and top-shelf goalkeeping from both sides, Campos may have been the only person in the stadium who expected his brazen attempt to curl around SKC keeper Tim Melia, inside the far post, and into the net, and to release an energy that hadn’t been seen in BMO Stadium since Gareth Bale’s extra-time equalizer against Philadelphia in the 2022 MLS Cup Final.

That’s what the game can provide, though. A moment of collective joy and relief produced by a shy, reserved, unanticipated source whose family at that moment was leaping for joy around their screens in the barrio of Tepito, 1,800 miles away, while the top Mexican goal scorer in MLS history, Carlos Vela, looked on from the sideline, having re-joined Campos a few days earlier at the club he helped create.

Campos, who as a teen delivered food on his motorcycle to support his family while he rose through the academy of Liga MX club Santos Laguna, sprinted and leapt toward the corner flag, where he was swarmed by joyous teammates. The Cup would be theirs – they knew it. What they could not have predicted was the source of the matchwinning goal, Campos’ first ever for the club in 34 total appearances.

“After he scored it, I'm screaming at him like, ‘Your right foot? Tienes una derecha?’” said defender Ryan Hollingshead, one of the men who embraced Campos in the corner.

“I always tell him he has a potential that even he doesn't believe,” said Sergi Palencia, the fullback who was placed into a center back role midway through the final due to teammates’ injuries. “I always tell [Campos], ‘You have to believe more in yourself.’ He has amazing speed. He is in amazing condition, has very good passing, very good technique … It's a matter of time before he will be one of the – if he isn’t already – one of the best left backs in the league.”

“Omar came on fantastically,” said LAFC manager Steve Cherundolo, himself a former top-flight fullback. “He is someone who is technically very good in possession and can beat you one-v-one. These are the things we show him weekly, ask him to do daily, and when he does he’s really good. I’d lie if I say he listens to me all the time, so I don’t know who he was listening to tonight … It was actually the first time I’ve seen him strike a ball with his right foot since he’s been here.”

Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the pitch, behind fist-pumping goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, the famed 3252 Supporters’ Union had erupted like the 4.7 earthquake that struck the city a few days earlier, a band of black-clad Angelenos celebrating Campos’ title-clinching strike by pogoing up and down in chaotic unison, having sung and screamed its songs and waved its black and gold banners without pause since kickoff two hours earlier.

“Unbelievable,” Hollingshead said of their support. “Again, these guys – the 3252 is always world class, best in the league, maybe you're putting them in categories worldwide for what they do for us and for what they do for this club. Then you look at the rest of the fans that got involved in this game, especially going into overtime. You could hear the ups and downs of the crowd – anytime a big defensive play was made the crowd’s going wild. They were so engaged in the game and I think that's the 3252 kind of rubbing off on the rest of the crowd.”

“Congrats to our fans,” Cherundolo said. “This is the city of champions, and they got another one tonight. I’m very happy for our fans, they always support us. Tonight felt a little different than a normal Wednesday night, it felt a little more electrifying … it felt like playoffs a little bit, and I think that pushed the players, especially after we scored [Campos’] goal.”

Their support propelled LAFC to its third goal just seven minutes later, from a man who had won the Cup with Kansas City when Campos was ten years old.

Kei Kamara, raised in LA, had relocated much of his family to Kansas, whose open spaces resembled his native Sierra Leone. He flew those relatives to LA so they could experience Wednesday’s final with him. “Today was a special day,” Kamara said afterward, “to play against the team that I won that trophy with.

“I grew up in this country,” Kamara continued, “moving from Sierra Leone, and in LA I played through all the ranks … played for Orange County Blue Stars and was able to play in Open Cup games. So for me, the Open Cup, it's the FA Cup of America”— a reference to the 150-year-old England championship that welcomes every club in the land, from Manchester United to the local pub team.

“That’s why it's really special when you win that trophy,” Kamara said. “I’ve been around. I know what it means to win the U.S. Open Cup.”

Winning it in the city that raised him when he arrived here as a refugee from war-ravaged West Africa – and for the club that offered him a chance when everyone else thought he was too old – that was storybook stuff, too. “I'll repeat this over and over,” Kamara said. “I used to follow this club before I moved here. I followed [LAFC] on Instagram and I was envious of seeing the postgame pictures with all the family all the time.”

Kamara looked down at his children, who had joined him at the postgame press conference. “So to be part of it now to be able to celebrate, to bring these guys into the locker room with me, it's really special. That's what it means to win something. We didn't just win it today as players, but … with all our families, the kitchen staff, and everybody who’s part of this club.”

Kamara’s goal had been the product of a sublime pass from 2023 Golden Boot winner and MLS MVP runner-up Denis Bouanga, who on this night shifted from his usual goal scorer role to one that saw him cover every inch of the pitch and place himself at the center of nearly every important action, if not at their finish. One of just five LAFC field players who played all 120 minutes (not including Lloris), Bouanga shared unofficial Man of the Match honors with Palencia, who played out of position for nearly half of those two hours, and never stopped tormenting Kansas City’s attackers or building chances for his team.

“He’s such a bulldog out there,” Hollingshead said of Palencia, the FC Barcelona product who joined LAFC prior to the ’23 season, “just hunting everything. … It’s the 115th, 120th minute and you’ve got no legs left, and you see Sergi just flying around the field. When you’ve got a guy like that, it lifts everybody. Everybody sees that and everybody gets lifted to try and finish out the game.”

“We had to suffer,” said Giroud. “One more time we stayed together as a team, and we just really wanted to win the trophy because of the Leagues Cup [outcome one month earlier]. We are so happy for our fans, for ourselves, and for our families.

“This cup will bring us confidence for the rest of the season,” Giroud added, “because we don’t want to stop here. We know we have to be strong the rest of the season to qualify for the playoffs and to go as far as we can in the playoffs. We are hungry.”

Campos knows a bit about hunger. And about patience and faith, as well. “The truth is that I feel very happy to be a champion,” he said in Spanish, his new medal around his neck. “It's my first time … I feel very good, very happy and grateful for the team that trusted me.”

LAFC returns to MLS regular-season play on Saturday, September 28, on the road against FC Cincinnati. That game kicks off at 4:30 p.m. PT and will be shown live on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.