Since the launch of ESPN+, the award-winning ESPN Features Unit has overseen the production of eight ESPN+ Original Series, with more to come in the future.
The latest is WE ARE LAFC, an all-access documentary series chronicling the creation of the LAFC franchise and its inaugural MLS season on and off the field, in the locker room and at home.
Collaborating with outside entities, in this case Major League Soccer and Mandalay Sports Media, ESPN’s Vice President Original Content & Features, Craig Lazarus, oversees each of these ESPN+ series along with a member of the Features Unit management team. For WE ARE LAFC, Lazarus worked in tandem with Ben Hobbs, the senior managing producer who also oversaw the E+ series Earn Everything about Duke basketball.
Below, Lazarus and Hobbs combined to choose three “must-see moments” for viewers to watch for in this series, which begins streaming today on ESPN+:
1. Witness head coach Bob Bradley when he addresses the team in meetings and the locker room. In this excerpt captured at halftime, Bradley pushes LAFC to play faster during a late-season match.
2. Eavesdrop on private moments between Bradley and individual players. In this excerpt, Bradley talks with LAFC’s first team captain Laurent Ciman after Ciman was transferred from LAFC to the French League 1 side Dijon FCO.
3. Experience Will Ferrell. The actor/comedian is one of LAFC’s owners. He opens four of the episodes and appears in six of them. Here he tries to understand why the LAFC rivalry with the cross-town LA Galaxy is known as “El Tráfico.”
The 24th straight season of Major League Soccer on ESPN kicks off Sunday, March 3, with a doubleheader: D.C. United versus Atlanta United at 6 p.m. ET and Los Angeles FC versus Sporting Kansas City at 8:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. PT).
