The legendary Lakers point guard who has amazed the basketball world since his high school days is about to "equal" Michael Jordan with "six rings" as a champion. Johnson is one of the largest shareholders in the Los Angeles Football Club, one of the final teams in Major League Soccer, the American league.
The most important personalities of sport, cinema, companies and others, are entering the directives of soccer clubs, trying to turn the king of Europe into one of the most important sports in North America.
Magic Johnson and actor Will Ferrel at LAFC, former boxer Oscar De La Hoya at the Houston Dynamo, Hollywood director and producer Joe Roth at Seattle Sounders or David Beckham at Inter Miami CF, are just some of the celebrities who are after the decisions of American football.
The superstar belonging to the NBA Hall of Fame became a shareholder of LAFC since the club's creation in 2017. The 100 million they disbursed to get the Chivas USA bacchanal seat were distributed among the firmament of stars that make up the club's board.
The audiovisual producer and owner of the Golden State Warriors Peter Guber, the former American soccer player Mia Hamm, the co-founder and CEO of YouTube Chad Hurley or the former baseball player Nomar Garciaparra, are the best known leaders of the club.
"I'm a winner. We're going to put money in and we're going to make a winning team," Magic Johnson declared five years ago. Reason was not lacking, in just over a year they built a stadium for 22,000 people in which they invested some 350 million euros and have turned the United States into the ideal destination for many world-class soccer players.
Both the US and Canada have been making a big commitment to football in recent years, but their competitions are adapted to a system more typical of the NBA or the NFL than the European one.
The teams are divided into the eastern and western conferences and after the regular league - the first phase that pits all the teams with a conventional classification - the playoffs are played for a title that ends up being decided in a grand final.
This year, the decisive game will face Los Angeles FC and the Philadelphia Union and will take place this Saturday at the Banc of California, the home stadium of the Angelenos, who will play with the advantage of the public.
Magic Johnson's team only has five years of history, but it already has such well-known players on the old continent as Carlos Vela, Gareth Bale, Giorgio Chiellini and Cristian Tello on its squad.
The Los Angeles team reaches the last match with a balance of 21 wins, four draws and nine losses, in addition to a Carlos Vela in exceptional form with 12 goals and 11 assists. The Mexican soccer player has been a member of the club since its inception and has already declared in the days leading up to the final that he is not going to miss the opportunity to win the MLS after five years of trying.
On the other side of the scale are the Philadelphia Union, who have conceded just five losses and have established themselves as the highest scoring team in MLS with 72 goals. They have the Hungarian midfielder Dániel Gazag who has 23 goals and five assists and on whom the LAFC defense, led by Giorgio Chiellini, will have to pay close attention.
After the good reception of the fans in the semifinal against the Los Angeles Galaxy of Riqui Puig and the conference final against Austin, it is expected that the sign of no tickets will be hung at the Banc of California lockers. Tickets for resale already exceed 400 euros, but the biggest problem for fans will be how to get to the stadium.
The same afternoon a college football game takes place at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the Olympic stadium, and they are the ones who have priority to use the parking lot. This will cause those attending the great football final to have to rely on public transport, taxis or shuttles from nearby car parks.
Not everything is bad. The LAFC board of directors are aware of this problem and that is why they have already announced that anyone who arrives at the field two and a half hours before will be able to benefit from the 50% discount on food and drink, which guarantees a great atmosphere in the stands from the hours before the meeting.
