SAN DIEGO — No expansion team in MLS history had a more successful launch than LAFC, which played in two MLS Cup finals, two CONCACAF Champions League finals and won two Supporters’ Shields and a U.S. Open Cup in its first six-plus seasons. And some of the credit for that goes to Tom Penn who, as a founding owner and the team’s first president, laid the foundation for that success.
So when Penn migrated south three years ago and began laying the foundation for another expansion club, this time in San Diego, it was assumed he’d simply dust off the same blueprints.