Blessed with picturesque weather in Los Angeles, often before training, Los Angeles FC players will goof around outside. They’ll throw a baseball or football, have a few laughs before locking in for the session.
One day, a new signing was with the group as they tossed around an American football. His form wasn’t so good, which got some laughs. Then he caught the ball and turned into Derrick Henry, tucking the football high and tight in his arm, running and looking for contact. He ran around, bumping into as many teammates as he could.
Everybody laughed. It was a great moment. The new signing is a jokester, someone who fits seamlessly into the group.
It was LAFC’s MLS-record signing Son Heung-min.
“This guy is something else,” LAFC defender Nkosi Tafari told The Athletic. “He’s got a big personality, he loves to have fun. He’s always joking. I’m a big troll, but I’ve got stiff competition with Sonny. He’s always trolling.”
Take a flight up the Pacific Coast, just over the Canadian border into Vancouver, and a similar dynamic is playing out.
Vibes were already great in the Whitecaps locker room, with the team enjoying its best season yet. Key injuries and a summer departure threatened to knock the team off course, but a huge summer addition helped allay those worries.
When Bayern Munich legend Thomas Müller joined the club, he quickly assimilated into the group — and established his personality.
“Man, he’s a joker. In a good way!” Whitecaps midfielder Ralph Priso said. “Like if he beats you in training, he’ll let you know. Honestly, him and Seba (Sebastian Berhalter) go at it the most. If his team beats Seba’s team, he’ll come in the changing room asking, ‘Where’s Berhalter? Not a good day for him today!’”
Thomas Muller celebrates a goal for the Whitecaps with Sebastian Berhalter. (Christopher Morris / Imagn Images)
Speak to anyone around LAFC and the Whitecaps about these two legends, and the answers are almost interchangeable.
On the field, their styles are quite different, but instant success, both on and off the field, has been a constant at their new clubs. Leadership, kindness, togetherness and a complete lack of ego are themes that repeatedly come up when talking to anyone around them.
“Müller is the complete opposite of what you would think a superstar joining a team is,” Priso said. “It’s refreshing.”
Multiple LAFC staffers call Sonny “a gem of a human.”
This weekend, for the first time in MLS since each joined this summer, Son and Müller will share the field. The Whitecaps will host LAFC in a Western Conference semifinal, a single-elimination match between two of the favorites in their conference, in front of around 54,000 fans at a sold-out BC Place. And all those eyeballs will surely be fixated on the two slam-dunk summer signings.
Group chats and locker room banter
Scottish center back Ryan Porteous joined LAFC on Aug. 4. Two days later, the club announced the signing of Son from Tottenham for a league-record fee of $26.5 million, per sources briefed on the deal.
“It was good for me, I could fly right under the radar,” Porteous said with a laugh.
Within the next three days, Son received his visa and debuted against the Chicago Fire on Aug. 9. Visa issues to complete registration plague MLS teams and typical signings, and there is often a delay that takes weeks, not days.
Porteous, for example, debuted on Aug. 23.
“His visa was prioritized. Probably more important to get him on the pitch,” Porteous admitted.
Joining the team at the same time as Son, Porteous was in a similar situation of assimilating to a new locker room. Together, as well as the rest of the team’s summer signings, they were added to the team group chat and joined the team’s fantasy football league. Porteous and Son aren’t too good at the latter.
Son is an active participant in the team group chat, though, always looking for jokes and sending memes when the guys are firing.
“When the chat is active, he’s active,” Tafari said. “All it takes is one message. He’s sending memes. He’s got time on his hands, I don’t know how he does it all. He must have a twin.”
Son is often in the middle of banter in the locker room or messing with guys on the field, too. More than once during water breaks, Son will grab a water bottle, stand in front of a teammate and pretend he’s about to drink and instead squirt the bottle at whoever is behind him.
When caught, Son flashes his innocent smile: “Come on, you know I wouldn’t do that to you,” as he walks away.
“I tend to stay away from his rondo circle, because he just tries to meg you,” Porteous said. “I’m not someone who finds that funny, I need to take myself away so I don’t get annoyed.”
Müller is the same way. His trademark wide smile is a near constant off the pitch – beyond the friendly battles and trash talk with Berhalter in training.
When Müller scored his 300th career goal, the Whitecaps brought him a cake on the field after the match. He grabbed the cake and ran it around the field.
Then there are the press conference moments (beyond his goat-noise introduction), like when Müller accidentally announced teammate Tristan Blackmon was called up for international duty with the United States. When told that information was not public yet, he momentarily looked embarrassed, then pretended to take back his words to widespread laughs in the room.
Going out into the community
Müller spoke of his desire for a new adventure when leaving Bayern Munich and deciding on his next move. Landing in Vancouver, he has enjoyed exploring his new home.
Müller has been to a number of Vancouver Canucks games — where he not only enjoys the entertainment but constantly seeks tactical hockey information to expand his knowledge — and he’s even shown up at a sports bar to watch a Whitecaps game with fans when he was unavailable to play. All of it is charismatic and comes through as genuine.
Hello @WhitecapsFC! 🏔️
Thomas Müller and Tosaint Ricketts are in the building for tonight’s #Canucks game! pic.twitter.com/kfBXGYnQy9
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) October 4, 2025
Not only is Müller a willing participant, he’s actually the driving force behind these team outings, sources insist. The club is getting many more opportunities and requests since Müller arrived. The German star wants to use his sway to bring along as many of his teammates as he can.
“He’s messaging the group chat for team get-togethers, team outings,” Priso said. “He wants to discover the city. I think that’s cool. It’s cool to see a guy who has such a big profile who just wants to hang out with the guys.”
One evening, Müller was out for dinner. Tables at the restaurant were pretty close to each other and the table next to his recognized him.
“I know who you are,” one patron at the table alongside him said.
“No, you don’t,” the sarcastic Müller deadpanned.
For the rest of the dinner, Müller was conversing and connecting with that table next to him.
Son Heung-min throws out a first pitch at Dodger Stadium. (Luke Hales / Getty Images)
Son has found time to venture out into his new city, too.
He threw out the first pitch at a Los Angeles Dodgers game and was on the field at a Los Angeles Rams game. Porteous tagged along but joked his seats were “up in the heavens” at the top of SoFi Stadium. Tafari didn’t want to hear those complaints.
“Bro, I was sitting on my couch watching those games!” Tafari said.
Son was courted by the Lakers, too, with the club sending him “welcome to Los Angeles” care packages to his house. Tafari, signed to LAFC in the winter, didn’t get the same welcome.
“Wow, there are levels to this,” Tafari said with a smile. “I’m sure mine is on the way!”
Son is gracious with his time to teammates, fans and anyone he comes across. If guys ask him to sign something for a friend, he does so with a smile. When fans show up screaming his name, Son tries to get to every single one.
“Sometimes guys come by and if they ask him to sign something or make a video, he’ll do it 10-out-of-10 times,” Tafari said. “We’ll be at hotels, I’ll see the same fan from the last four away trips and he’ll always stay and sign. He’ll do it, no matter what.
“He’s such a great guy. With that amount of fandom, it’s insane, it’ll take a lot out of you. Just a great guy.”
‘It’s not forced’
The best part about both of these superstars, according to those closest to them, is that nothing is fake. Staffers in Vancouver, for instance, rave about how self-aware and genuine Müller is.
“From the way he is, you wouldn’t think he’s Thomas Müller,” Priso said. “Does that make sense? He’s so down to earth, so relatable. He tries to connect with everyone – literally everyone.”
One LAFC staffer noted that sometimes when the camera turns off, stars act differently. Son doesn’t.
“It’s well-documented everywhere that he’s a top guy, a really good human being,” Porteous said. “It’s awesome.”
Added Tafari: “He just wants to be one of the guys, that’s why he’s so banter-heavy. It’s not forced, he just loves the camaraderie so much, he loves laughing. He’s such a nice guy.”
Son Heung-min takes a turn with American football when visiting the NFL’s LA Rams. (Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)
Both players understand the importance of their roles as faces of their respective clubs. Both teams work in conjunction with the stars’ camps to carry out media requests. Both players embrace those duties much more than stars of their caliber typically do in MLS.
Vancouver has lost only one game since Müller’s debut, the final match of the regular season against FC Dallas. Müller did prematch media availability and often stars aren’t expected to do both pre- and post-match sessions; but because Vancouver lost, Müller knew it was important he was made available after the game to fulfill his role as a leader.
On Saturday, the two biggest non-Messi stars in the league collide in what amounts to a marquee moment for MLS.
It’s not as if Son and Müller haven’t faced off before. Their teams – for club and country – have met 14 times through the years, with both players sharing the field in 12 of those matches (including three friendlies). Their paths even intersected in a memorable World Cup group finale in 2018.
Müller’s clubs have never lost to Son’s, whose one head-to-head win came with South Korea in that World Cup seven years ago. There’s history here – and one way or another on Saturday, there’s more to make on a stage that squarely belongs to MLS.
