Puebla: Having recently suffered their first loss of the 2026 season, Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) and their South Korean superstar Son Heung-min will look to bounce back and grab a ticket to the semifinals of a regional competition this week. LAFC will visit Cruz Azul for the second leg of the quarterfinals of the Concacaf Champions Cup at Estadio Cuauhtemoc in Puebla, Mexico. The match will kick off at 9 p.m. Tuesday (local time), or 10 a.m. Wednesday (South Korea time).

According to Yonhap News Agency, LAFC are in the driver's seat against the defending Concacaf champions after handily winning the first leg 3-0 last week. Son opened the scoring with his first open-play goal of the year and then made the "blah blah" gesture with his hand, apparently taking jabs at his critics. Prior to that match, Son had been held to one penalty goal for the season -- scored in the opening round of the Concacaf tournament on Feb. 17. Son had also failed to score for South Korea in the national team's friendly matches against Ivory Coast and Austria, further fueling the narrative that he had lost a step at age 33.

With Son sitting out, LAFC fell to Portland Timbers 2-1 in their latest Major League Soccer (MLS) match Saturday for their first loss of 2026. LAFC had five wins and one draw in MLS play prior to that loss without having conceded a goal. Son and other veterans were held out of that match and should be well rested against Cruz Azul.

Even a draw will send LAFC to the semifinals and push Son a step closer to his first trophy with LAFC following his arrival last August. LAFC were eliminated in the Western Conference semifinals in last year's MLS playoffs. This year's Concacaf Champions Cup began with 27 clubs from the United States, Mexico, Canada, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dominican Republic. Four teams each from the U.S. and Mexico are competing in the quarterfinals.