The expansion Los Angeles Football Club, which will join Major League Soccer for the 2018 season, has reached a multiyear player-development deal with the Orange County Blues of the third-tier United Soccer League.
Both teams are expected to formerly announce the agreement Wednesday morning.
The relationship will allow LAFC to sign players and loan them to the Blues beginning this winter, a year before LAFC enters MLS. It also makes the Irvine-based Blues the 20th USL team to partner with an MLS team.
MLS clubs generally use their affiliates much the way major league baseball teams use their minor league partners: to give playing time to young, developing talent; to help rehab injured first-team players; and in some cases, to help players learn new positions.