Few professionals have the experience Olivier Giroud and Hugo Lloris do on soccer’s biggest stages.
When the close friends and 2018 FIFA World Cup champions joined forces in Major League Soccer last year, Giroud and Lloris did so hoping to win together one more time. But neither 38-year-old French legend contemplated that that effort would include something they’d not done before.
With the last spot in the 32-team 2025 FIFA Club World Cup riding on the outcome, that “amazing opportunity,” declared Lloris, is contingent on the Los Angeles Football Club winning a high-stakes showdown Saturday night at sold-out BMO Stadium against Mexican giant Club América.
A guaranteed $9.55 million payday goes to the winning club, as does entry into the tournament’s Group D alongside Brazilian standout Flamengo, Espérance Sportive de Tunis and English power Chelsea FC.
Whoever wins Saturday will group play against Chelsea on June 16 in Atlanta.
“It could be nice to meet Chelsea again,” shared Giroud, who was part of the Stamford Bridge squad that won its way into the tournament by claiming the 2020-21 UEFA Champions League title. “Obviously, it will be a massive game at the weekend against América.”
While France’s all-time leading scorer was notching goals in West London for The Blues and internationally with Les Bleus, Lloris stopped them in the northern part of the city for Tottenham and, as his country’s longest-tenured captain, across four trips to the FIFA World Cup.
“[A]fter so many years in this business I know when you have an opportunity you have to grab it, take it,” said Lloris, who finished runner-up in the 2019 Champions League final, one of 70 appearances in the tournament since 2008. “There’s nothing for granted in football. Just live the moment. Enjoy the moment. But at the same time you don’t want to have any regrets.”
Poise and results in pressure-packed games rank high among the reasons LAFC brought in the veteran winners. The season prior to their arrival, regret in similar situations became the Black & Gold story.
LAFC could have secured a spot in the Club World Cup via the 2023 CONCACAF Champions League, but that team ultimately fell flat, losing the two-leg final to Liga MX’s Club León.
“This in a sense is a way to redeem that and get us that berth in the Club World Cup,” said defender Ryan Hollingshead, who struggled off the bench that day and acknowledged lingering regret.
The first of three unsuccessful finals for LAFC during head coach Steve Cherundolo’s second season seemed to dash the Black & Gold’s hope of qualifying for the new-look, high-profile tournament in the U.S. from June 14 to July 13 that boasts a record prize pool of $1 billion.
As fate would have it, six of the 22 LAFC players listed on the team sheet for the second leg against León will get a rare second bite at the apple. On May 6, the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport finalized a ruling that affirmed FIFA’s decision to deem León ineligible for the Club World Cup because of ownership ties to the group that runs Pachuca, which also qualified by winning last year’s CONCACAF title.
FIFA’s contingency plan put LAFC, an 8-year-old MLS team, in the dare-to-dream scenario opposite 108-year-old América, which, despite losing the Liga MX Clausura final to Toluca on Tuesday, has reigned over Mexican soccer in recent years.
The teams’ only official encounter came in 2020. A dramatic 3-1 win for LAFC spearheaded by Mexican great Carlos Vela, who scored twice in two minutes, sent the Black & Gold into the CONCACAF Champions League final for the first time in its history.
(If América needed a reminder about the pandemic-era loss at a neutral site in Orlando, this week LAFC announced Vela’s official retirement and named the 35-year-old attacker the first Black & Gold Ambassador.)
Although Saturday’s contest takes place on the LAFC grounds, the match, run by FIFA, should take on a neutral feel, mimicking the 50-50 atmosphere from the clubs’ preseason meeting at BMO Stadium in February.
“Listen, last time we played them in our stadium, I know it was only a friendly game, but there was more yellow in the stands than black jerseys,” noted Lloris, who became familiar with América while playing in Europe.
Home fans, the 3252, will occupy the standing section in the North End. A strong contingent of América supporters is expected to overtake the opposite side of the stadium for a game that requires two 15-minute periods of extra time and the potential for a penalty shootout if the score is tied at the end of regulation.
LAFC enters the match unbeaten in its last eight – three wins and five draws in MLS regular-season action – since falling to Inter Miami in the CONCACAF Champions Cup quarterfinals April 9, an outcome that felt as self-inflicted as the faulty finals in 2023.
To get things right against América, Giroud and Lloris prescribed a sense of calm and serenity on the pitch, all the while matching or surpassing the opponent’s confidence, energy and intensity.
“That’s the only way to face bigger clubs,” Lloris said. “It’s easy to talk. But the most important truth is what is going to happen on the field.”
CLUB AMÉRICA AT LAFC
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: BMO Stadium
TV/Radio: DAZN.com, DAZN App, TBS, UniMás and TUDN/710 AM, ESPN LA App, 980 AM