Las Vegas Lights joins forces with LAFC for 2021 season

Las Vegas Lights FC’s plans for the 2021 season were officially unveiled Friday, as they announced an affiliate agreement with LAFC. The USL Championship called it a “temporary, one-year agreement,” which is ambiguous for the future, but at least this year, they have an agreement.

Lights FC will be managed by former U.S. Men’s National Team stalwart Steve Cherundolo, stepping into a head coaching role at the professional level for the first time in his career, although he’s worked as an assistant and youth coach since retiring as a player in 2014.

But this gives Las Vegas a plan for the season ahead, which was rather uncertain for much of the offseason, considering they had no coach and only one player announced as on the squad for the season.

So here’s the interesting part: Las Vegas Lights will live in LA and train with LAFC during the week, and then head over to Vegas for home games. We’ll see how it goes, but people in Southern California think a trip to Vegas is a short car ride anyway, so it may not end up as weird as many outside the area think.

How will this affect Sacramento Republic? We’ll have to see how the squad looks, but it sounds like it will be a mix of LAFC reserves and USL players, so it may end up being more of an MLS2 team, which may or may not affect their competitiveness in USL Championship play. Given the Pacific Division is likely to be a murderer’s row, so to speak, this could ratchet up the competition even more or help eliminate a contender, we shall see.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.