Swanson: LAFC needs Olivier Giroud to ‘score as many goals as he’s used to’

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An LAFC fan holds a picture of Los Angeles FC forward Olivier Giroud prior to the start of an MLS match against the Minnesota United at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025. Los Angeles FC won 1-0. (Photo by Raul Romero Jr., Contributing Photographer)

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LOS ANGELES – And we wondered whether Olivier Giroud would give LAFC a lift this season.

The 38-year-old French legend needed only to toe the sideline 77 minutes into LAFC’s 1-0 season-opening victory over Minnesota United FC on Saturday and, moments later, we saw a crackle of electricity surge through what had been a chill Saturday afternoon for the home team at BMO Stadium.

He was but a witness, but it was with Giroud waiting to come on for him that newcomer Jeremy Ebobisse got a perfectly placed pass from Nathan Ordaz – the match’s real sparkplug – and banged home a left-footed goal in the 78th minute.

The first goal of this MLS season came on Ebobisse’s last touch of the afternoon, just before he gave way to Giroud, the French World Cup winner who came of the bench Saturday because LAFC Coach Steve Cherundolo was saving him for Tuesday’s CONCACAF Champions Cup match against the Colorado Rapids.

On Saturday, it was Ebobisse’s goal that did the saving. The 28-year-old forward walked off the pitch slapping his chest, having done in his LAFC debut what Giroud managed to do only twice in 19 matches for LAFC last season – get on the scoresheet.

Then, in Ebobisse’s place, the loping Giroud took one shot in his 11 minutes, the recipient of a drive and dish from Denis Buonga. But the attempt was right at the Loons’ goalkeeper, Dayne St. Clair. An easy save.

LAFC didn’t need the goal from Giroud on Saturday, but the team will need them going forward. And lots of them.

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Denis Bouanga – LAFC’s other star French forward – is still doing his dang thing for the Black & Gold, with consecutive 20-goal seasons. Otherwise, though, in the constant churn of MLS rostering LAFC lost a lot of firepower, including Mateusz Bogusz’s 20 goals.

Enter Giroud?

When the 2018 World Cup champion joined LAFC last August as the team’s highest-paid player, Giroud was fresh off of a season in Italy in which he tallied 15 goals and eight assists in 35 games for AC Milan and expecting that success to translate.

The 6-foot-4 superstar had been informed by his pal Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the former Galaxy standout who was also Giroud’s teammate in Milan, that MLS was a scorer’s paradise. That it is “a league for strikers because the teams, they don’t play to keep the result or defend. They play to score goals.”

Music to the ears of any striker, no? Especially one of the stature of Giroud, who played 20 seasons in Europe, won four FA Cups, one championship apiece in Ligue 1 and Serie A, the 2020-21 Champions League and who scored a national-record 57 goals for France.

A guy like that? It would seem the MLS would totally be his jam – if he happens to like listening to tunes on long road trips.

In Europe, Giroud played mostly in the same time zone. In MLS, teams traverse four time zones, ranging from L.A. to Montreal, Miami to Vancouver – a grind for young players, no less for a star closing in on 40, coming off a full European season and carrying a heavy burden of expectation.

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“Travel is massive,” Giroud told the Guardian last September. “In Europe, when you travel in Champions League, for example, the longest flight would be one hour and a half or two hours … Here, I’ve already done 20 hours of flight in a month.”

And that’s hardly been the only unexpected challenge. Giroud’s home, which was near the evacuation zone for the Palisades Fire, was targeted earlier this month by burglars who stole a reported $500,000 worth of jewelry.

And just last week, he had the honor of playing in the second-coldest match between MLS teams – 6 degrees at kickoff in LAFC’s 2-1 loss to the Rapids in Commerce City, Colo. Giroud’s beard froze.

So, yeah, a real walk on the beach, this MLS thing.

But Bouanga remembers needing to go through an adjustment period when he arrived in L.A. In 2022, playing catchup with a new team without the benefit of preseason reps.

The next season, though, he became the goal-scoring sensation LAFC fans were celebrating Saturday with a Bouanga-approved bobblehead in his likeness.

“It’s going to be the same for him,” Bouanga said of his countryman. “Myself and my teammates are going to support him and he’s going to score as many goals as he’s used to.”

That or expect Ebobisse – previously such an LAFC nemesis – to get the call more often. Or to see more from the 21-year-old Ordaz, a homegrown Encino product who changed the tenor of what was feeling like a stroll in the sand before he came on Saturday in the 70th minute.

Because as it’s constructed, this season’s LAFC team is deep. And no matter how its constructed, every season’s LAFC team is competitive. How competitive will depend, this season, on whether they can get their French football giant going.