‘The city has been great to us’: As Club World Cup begins, LAFC practices in Macon

The Los Angeles Football Club is pretty young, having started play in 2018.

But it has been a successful youngster, winning the MLS Cup in 2022 and also taking its second Supporters’ Shield — the MLS trophy for the team with the best regular season record — that year.

The Black and Gold Falcons are used to being a target.

Now, though, they’re an underdog, considered a middle-of-the-pack team in the expanded FIFA Club World Cup.

The team that is calling Macon its home away from home for a week or so isn’t taking that approach. They’re already hungry.

“I think that’s for sure the storyline that’s being set,” veteran Ryan Hollingshead said Sunday during a short media session at Mercer’s Betts Stadium, where LAFC is practicing ahead of Cup games in Atlanta. “I don’t think that’s how we feel internally. I don’t think we’re talking about being the underdog.”

Midfielder Yaw Yeboah wants to keep the focus simple, but also represent.

“Just to play our game against these top players,” he said. “Also (see) how the league is (doing), to compete against these top teams.”

The young LAFC team takes on a legendary program at 3 p.m. (TBS) on Monday when it faces Chelsea FC out of London, which was founded in 1905 and is the defending Club World Club champion, beating Palmeira 2-1 in 2022.

LAFC arrived in Macon Friday night and got in its first practice session at Mercer’s soccer stadium on Saturday. The facility is all but on lockdown, with a black privacy screening wrapping the entire complex, plus additional barrier fencing in the medical school parking lot adjacent to the field.

Fickle Georgia weather made an appearance on Sunday.

The team was to practice at 1 p.m. on Sunday, and meet local media beforehand for a short 15-minute window. Then it was pushed to noon.

The team arrived a little after noon for practice amid typically frisky weather that quickly disrupted the schedule, thanks to lightning in the area, and the different allowances for outdoor events based on Mercer’s standards, the MLS, the team and FIFA.

In a span of a few minutes, the schedule changed multiple times and the media session was pushed to the end of practice, just long enough for reporters to start heading for the parking lot.

Just that quickly, plans changed again, and Hollingshead and Yeboah came to the side for a short interview session. No media observation — and filming — of practice followed.

After practice, the team headed to Atlanta. The Club World Cup opens with LAFC and Chelsea on Monday at 3 p.m. Inter Miami CF and FC Porto play at Mercedes-Benz on Thursday, with Manchester City and Al Ain FC on June 22.

MBS hosts a knockout round match on June 29 and July 1, and then a quarterfinal on July 5.

LAFC is in Group D, and plays ES Tunis on Friday in Nashville and then Flamengo on June 24 in Orlando.

The Club World Cup has undergone a major expansion since Chelsea won it, and bears much more of a resemblance to next year’s full World Cup, during which CWC teammates will be opponents.

“We’ve never tested ourselves in this way,” Hollingshead said. “We’ve never played against these sorts of clubs, and in this kind of tournament… It’s a level playing ground. Everything’s up for grabs.”

Hollingshead is a defender who is seventh in minutes played, and has started 10 MLS games. Midfielder Yeboah is working his way into more minutes.

Denis Bouanga, of France, leads LAFC with eight goals and shares the team lead with Mark Delgado with five assists.

Goalkeeper Hugo Lloris brings plenty of world experience to the team, with 70 UEFA Champions League matches as well as World Cups in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 with France.

If the Black and Gold Falcons finish in the top two — and early analysis indicates that’s a possibility — they’ll advance to the Knockout Round while still working in Macon.

The city is unfamiliar to a team that has nine players from California, one from Maryland and one from New York.

But so far, so good in a new temporary home.

“The city has been great to us,” Hollingshead said. “The facilities here, this field is amazing. Grateful to be here.”

If that impression keeps up, Mercer could get a chance to host a national team during the full World Cup next year. This run as a practice site for the Club event is sort of a “trial run,” athletic director Jim Cole and others explained when the university announced the partnership earlier this month.

Mercer and Macon began the application process to be considered a year ago, according to Visit Macon CEO Gary Wheat. The city has since offered giveaways of tickets to the game in Atlanta as a promotion for LAFC as Macon’s “home team” in the Club World Cup.