When Eduard Atuesta returned to Los Angeles after playing in Brazil for the past two years, the midfielder said it felt like he hadn’t been gone more than a week.
That may say something about his well-spent time at Palmeiras, where Atuesta won six titles and learned a lot by doing things like playing 42 minutes, including a half hour of extra time, during the crucial late stage of the FIFA Club World Cup final against Chelsea in 2022.
But it’s certainly indicative of how the 26-year-old Colombian feels about L.A., especially the Los Angeles Football Club, which first signed him with targeted allocation money seven years ago.
“It was the best decision of my life at that moment to choose LAFC,” said Atuesta, who started and played to the whistle in the club’s season-opening win at home over Seattle last weekend. “The sense of belonging that I have here is very special.”
Everything about L.A. felt familiar to Atuesta since the move a little more than three weeks ago, especially inside LAFC, which acquired him on a loan through 2024 with a club option to purchase.
“I’m very happy and excited that he’s back home,” said Jesus Murillo, Atuesta’s countryman.
El Profe, as Atuesta is known, stayed in touch with the Colombians who remained at LAFC, regularly chatting with Murillo and Eddie Segura.
When it came to the game, they discussed the shape of the team and the culture around it as it worked to win a Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup under head coach Steve Cherundolo in 2022.
“I watched that they were very happy also,” Atuesta said, “so it’s good to be back with my Colombian amigos.”
Atuesta will reunite with another Colombian buddy Saturday – Real Salt Lake’s Cristian “Chicho” Arango.
With or without either of them playing a part, LAFC has cleaned up against RSL, going 13-3-0 overall while outscoring the Utah team 37-15.
As LAFC heads on the road for the first time in 2024, Arango, the beloved-wherever-he-goes forward, leads RSL (0-1-1, 1 point) as captain into their home opener.
Arango joined LAFC in the summer of 2021 during the last days of Bob Bradley’s four-year tenure, which put a premium on possession and passing LAFC’s way into goals.
Through a condensed preseason and one competitive match, Cherundolo, entering his third year in charge, has shown Atuesta a few tactical wrinkles that makes this LAFC side more comfortable than the one he left at defending deep and searching out quick-strike attacks.
“We have the ability to be dangerous with less passes,” assessed the midfielder, who is comfortable playing defensive, running box to box, or pushing higher up into the attack. “With two passes in transition, we can score goals. That’s different. Maybe before we need to make more passes to have progressive plays on the field. Now it’s intensity to recover the ball and we have two airplanes with [Denis] Bouanga and [Cristian Olivera]. That’s good.”
Prior to LAFC’s current high-flying wingers joining the team, Arango appeared in each of the eight regular-season games Atuesta played in before he was sold to Palmeiras in December 2021, when Matías, his eldest child, was just two months old.
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The departure, not long after LAFC signed Atuesta to a contract extension, made him one of the earliest prospects to prove the club’s development strategy, which is fed by a vision that treats attracting and developing stars as both sides of the same coin.
Said club co-president and general manager John Thorrington: “Eduard is one of the best players to ever have played for LAFC and fit that model – a young player we invested in.”
LAFC at Real Salt Lake
When: 11:09 a.m. PT Saturday
Where: America First Field, Sandy, Utah
TV/radio: Apple TV (MLS Season Pass)/710 AM, 980 AM