It’s an accomplishment born more of chance than a plan. It’s more serendipity than statistic and so trivial that even Tomás Ángel didn’t know he had made history when he came off the bench for the final 14 minutes of LAFC’s first road game this season.
Ángel is the son of former Colombia striker Juan Pablo Ángel, who played for the Galaxy and Chivas USA during a six-season MLS career. So when Tomás made his LAFC debut in March, the Ángels became the only family to have members play for all three of Southern California’s MLS franchises.
“It’s like a coincidence,” Tomás said after a recent LAFC training session, accepting the news with more of a shrug than a celebration.
“I didn’t even think about it,” his father, equally unmoved, said by phone from Colombia.
Still it’s an accomplishment, and one that might never be equaled since Chivas USA disbanded hours after the 2014 season, with LAFC emerging Phoenix-like from the ashes four years later. But what Tomás, 21, really wants to do is follow his father to an MLS Cup final, something only two other father-son duos — Alex and Teal Bunbury and Gregg and Sebastian Berhalter — have done.
First, however, he’ll need to earn some playing time. On the LAFC depth chart at forward, Ángel is behind Denis Bouanga, the reigning MLS scoring champion, Mateusz Bogusz, Cristian Olivera and Kei Kamara, who have combined for 27 goals this season. As a result, Ángel has made just three MLS appearances off the bench — none lasting as long as 15 minutes — in his rookie season, though he scored three minutes after coming on in Saturday’s 6-2 rout of San Jose, a win that lifted LAFC to the top of the Western Conference table.
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That goal, Ángel’s first in MLS, made more history since he and his father are just the 10th father-son duo to both score in an MLS regular-season game, and the only pair to do so for L.A. teams.
Even so, getting on the field could become even more difficult for Ángel when Olivier Giroud, the French national team’s all-time leading scorer, arrives from Europe next month.
“That’s why I work every day, try to give my best in training, to have those opportunities,” he said….