Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
Los Angeles FC on Sunday fired head coach Marc Dos Santos following the Major League Soccer club’s 1-0 defeat to FC Dallas, ending a tenure that lasted less than a year and saw a squad tipped as MLS Cup favourites slide to sixth in the Western Conference. A brief statement from LAFC said the club had decided to axe Dos Santos after less than a year in the job following “careful consideration.” The dismissal was announced by General Manager John Thorrington, who had hand-picked Dos Santos as the successor to MLS Cup-winning coach Steve Cherundolo just nine months earlier.
“Marc has given a great deal to this club over the years, and we are grateful for his commitment, care and contributions to LAFC,” Thorrington said in the statement. “We wish Marc and his family all the best moving forward.” The club said it would name an interim coach soon ahead of a formal search for a permanent successor.
The numbers paint a picture of a season that unravelled almost from the start. LAFC were unbeaten in their first 11 matches in all competitions under Dos Santos, outscoring opponents 27-3 and advancing to the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup. They opened their MLS campaign with a 3-0 win over defending champions Inter Miami in front of 75,673 fans at the Coliseum. From that high point, however, the fall was steep and unforgiving. LAFC won just two of their last 13 games in all competitions, and only one of their past nine MLS matches. Since July, their league record stood at a dismal 1-4-5.
Dos Santos leaves LAFC with a record of 19 wins, 10 losses and 10 draws. The club sits sixth in the Western Conference with 41 points from 28 games, a position that would have been unthinkable in pre-season when many pundits predicted a title challenge. The attacking firepower that was supposed to make LAFC a fearsome proposition — Son Heung-min and Denis Bouanga — has failed to deliver with the consistency expected of players of their calibre. LAFC rank 15th in the league in goals per game, 19th in big chances created and 16th in expected goals. Son, who scored 12 goals in 13 games after arriving at the club late in 2025, has found the net just six times this season, though he has contributed 13 assists.
The fans had made their feelings clear long before the axe fell. Dos Santos incurred the ire of the LAFC support for what was widely perceived as static tactics and questionable substitution decisions. The team was booed at home by its normally supportive base, and the mood around BMO Stadium grew increasingly toxic as the season wore on. Saturday’s defeat at FC Dallas, with six key players including Bouanga and Son away on international duty, proved to be the final straw.
The context of Dos Santos’s appointment makes the outcome more painful. He was not a new face at LAFC. He had been an assistant on Bob Bradley’s staff in the club’s inaugural season in 2018, left to manage the Vancouver Whitecaps — where he struggled to a 22-39-20 record in two and a half years heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic — and returned as Cherundolo’s assistant in 2022, helping the team to a Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup. When Cherundolo stepped down after last season, Thorrington promoted from within for the second consecutive time. It was a decision that disappointed fans who wanted to see fresh tactics after Son’s arrival, and it ultimately backfired.
Dos Santos, 49, was born in Montreal and split his childhood between Quebec and Portugal. He is fluent in four languages and had won everywhere he managed except Vancouver, from the Ottawa Fury of the NASL — where he was named coach of the year in 2015 — to the San Francisco Deltas, whom he guided to an NASL title. His time at LAFC, however, will be remembered not for the trophies he won as an assistant but for the title challenge he failed to sustain as the man in charge.
LAFC have six matches remaining in the regular season, a slate that includes clashes with Vancouver, NYCFC and a resurgent LA Galaxy. The club’s next match is not until October 10 against Vancouver, after the two-week FIFA international break, giving Thorrington time to decide on an interim coach and begin the search for a permanent replacement. Whoever takes over faces an immediate challenge: stabilising a squad that has underachieved dramatically and restoring the confidence of a fan base that had grown weary of the same mistakes week after week.
For Dos Santos, the dismissal is a bitter end to a job he had spent years preparing for. For LAFC, it is an admission that the promotion from within — a gamble on continuity and familiarity — did not work. The club that once won an MLS Cup with a first-time head coach in Cherundolo has now fired his hand-picked successor less than a year into his tenure. The search for the fourth head coach in LAFC’s history begins now, and the lessons of the Dos Santos experiment will loom large over every decision Thorrington makes.
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