Cherundolo leaving LAFC after 2025 MLS season, returning to Germany | OneFootball

Manager Steve Cherundolo will be departing LAFC following the 2025 season to return his family to Germany, the MLS club announced Friday.

Cherundolo is only the club's second manager, taking over for Bob Bradley to begin the 2022 season. He helped LAFC win the 2022 Supporters' Shield and MLS Cup, the club's first two major trophies. After losses in three finals in 2023, he added a third major trophy to LAFC's cabinet last season, the 2024 U.S. Open Cup.

“It is an honor to be the head coach of LAFC,” Cherundolo said in a statement. “After much reflection and discussion with my family, we made the decision that at the end of this year we will return to Germany. I love Los Angeles and LAFC, but this move is in the best interest of my family, even as it will ultimately take us away from a team, city, organization, and fan base that I am proud to represent.”

The Black-and-Gold currently enter Matchday 9 in seventh place in the Western Conference, and earlier this month were eliminated from the Concacaf Champions Cup in the quaterfinals by Inter Miami. Their match on Saturday in Portland will be the 15th they've played this season.

Cherundolo also spent one season coaching the USL's Las Vegas Lights prior to his appointment to the LAFC job.

An American player, but a German pro

Hanover's US defender Steven Cherundolo | CHRISTOF STACHE/GettyImages

Despite five years coaching in the United States and more than a decade of his pro playing career as a U.S. national team regular, the first two decades of Cherundolo's time in pro football came in Germany, where he spent 15 seasons with Hanover 96, first helping the club earn promotion from the 2. Bundesliga and then solidifying its Bundesliga status.

He also began his coaching career at the club, managing its U-15 and U-17 academy teams before his move to Las Vegas. And he married his wife Mandy in Hanover in 2009, with whom he has two children.

It's unclear if Cherundolo plans to continue his coaching career in Germany. If he does, he would be following a lineage of German-American coaches that includes current Canada national team manager Jesse Marsch, current Hoffenheim manager Pellegrino Matarrazo, and former Schalke '04 and Norwich City manager David Wagner.