On the sidelines, not even the famously steely head coach could suppress a smile. His glacial blue eyes crinkled around the edges, softening as they beheld a long-held vision come to life.



LAFC plays the way you wish your favorite team would. They’re attack-minded, inventive, fearless. At a certain point during last week’s game against Vancouver, they started playing against themselves. Already up three, four, five goals, the LAFC players seemed to be competing to see who could pull off the most audacious trick.



Lee Nguyen flicked the ball between Whitecap legs. Mark-Anthony Kaye and Eduard Atuesta performed an increasingly elaborate series of one-two passes. At one point, Carlos Vela pulled the ball between his feet to dare the Vancouver defense to make the first move, hamming it up with a comically long pause to laughs and applause from the home fans; a few touches later he completed the move with a headed goal. The whole second half went like...