Soccer
Over the past few years, Denis Bouanga would seemingly be a prime target for jet lag as he travels from Los Angeles to various African destinations to play for the Gabon national team.
Yet the main effect on LAFC’s star attacker could be described as ‘inspiration.’
How else to describe his uncanny track record of high performance after long-haul travel? Two Septembers ago, in the opening months of his lavishly productive Black & Gold tenure, Bouanga logged a full 90 in Gabon’s 1-0 African Cup of Nations qualifying win over Sudan in Franceville on a Thursday, then boarded a flight to Istanbul, where after a three-hour layover, he caught a connection to LAX.
He landed on Saturday evening and reached BMO Stadium less than an hour before his club was scheduled to kick off an MLS match vs. FC Dallas. After 13 hours of somewhere around 10,000 miles (16,093 kilometers) in air travel, it’s safe to say coach Steve Cherundolo was not expecting to call upon his prized asset that night. But that’s an example of how differently Bouanga is built: Upon his request, the winger came off the bench to bag a late winner in a 2-1 victory.
“The coach just wanted me to watch the game,” he later told The Athletic, “but I asked him to play. He let me on the field, and I scored. It was perfect – it was meant to be.”
Scoring force
A short supersub cameo is one thing, a skeptic might retort. But what Bouanga did in the opposite direction last month, and after an even longer trip, is another. This time, he flew to Mauritius, a small Indian Ocean island serving as the host for Gabon’s CAF World Cup qualifier vs. the Seychelles, a small island nation with venue issues on home soil.
Joining his Panthères (Panthers) teammates on site without a single training session beforehand, Bouanga reeled off a first-half hat trick in less than 40 minutes to bank a straightforward 4-0 victory that kept Gabon hot on the trail of reigning African champions Côte d’Ivoire atop Group F, and Bouanga near the summit of the continent’s scoring chart with eight goals and counting in this qualification cycle.
Again and again, Bouanga has defied the usual norms of what’s physically possible after intercontinental journeys of this nature, racking up gaudy statistics and highlight-reel plays for both club and country. The 2023 MLS Golden Boot presented by Audi winner recently became the first player in MLS history to score at least 20 goals in three consecutive seasons and co-leads this year’s race, neck-and-neck with Inter Miami‘s Lionel Messi on 24 goals apiece.
The extra miles, he says, don’t feel like a burden when the joy of representing his father’s homeland – and driving their quest for a first-ever FIFA World Cup berth – is so palpable.
“It’s indescribable. It’s a great moment every time I wear this jersey. It’s a breath of fresh air,” Bouanga told MLS Season Pass’s Andrew Wiebe in French during a recent sitdown at LAFC’s training facility.
“I’m very happy every time I’m called up. I know it’s a long, long way from the United States to Gabon. I have a lot of flying hours, but I have to do it … I think country is as important as club. So as long as I have the ability to play and the ability to give matches and minutes and goals, I will give it.”
Family roots
Bouanga’s service to Gabon has blossomed into a labor of love, remarkably so considering he’d never set foot in the small central African nation before accepting his first call-up – and the fact that he’d initially demurred when Les Panthères first reached out to offer him a place in their program in 2015, early during his rise up the ranks at French club Lorient.
Born and raised in France to a French mother and a Gabonese expatriate father, Bouanga had already tasted adversity. His hometown club, Le Mans FC, snubbed him from their ‘sport-etudes’ (sports studies) academy program during his teens after harshly categorizing, in his words, “a playful water fight” after a training session as misbehavior, a setback that fiercely motivated him for years afterwards. So he sought to consolidate his standing as a first-team regular before committing to Gabon.
“I didn’t feel ready, since I was playing in the CFA [Championnat de France Amateur, the pro/am fourth tier] at the time,” he explained. “It was once I reached the professional level that I was able to go in 2017, because I think I felt ready, even if my father had doubts about it. But there you go. I took that step, and I don’t regret going there at all, because now I really love the selection more than anything.”
Bouanga is undoubtedly a superlative athlete, and he’s mastered routines that moderate the effects of those long hours in the air. Yet his career seems to exemplify the idea that high performance transcends physical output, and extends to mental and emotional facets.
“It’s true that it’s a lot of hours, a lot of traveling. Sometimes it’s a full day of traveling. But hey, I love football too much to stop there. I’m lucky to have a national team that’s great,” he said. “I find the energy once I’m on the field and that’s unbeatable.”
Going global
That’s why LAFC aid in Bouanga’s globetrotting itineraries, even when it causes him to be unavailable for their matches now and then. Such is the case with their rescheduled matches vs. Toronto and Austin during this month’s FIFA international window, overlapping with when Gabon play Gambia and Burundi.
“Denis is an incredible athlete, a very robust, durable athlete,” head coach Steve Cherundolo said last week. “We’ve seen that he has come back from the national team, arrived in the afternoon and played in the evening for us. There’s zero questioning his motivation and his ability to do that.
“I do think he gets a lot out of going away with the national team. He thoroughly enjoys it. He feels a sense of pride, which is really important. I think that’s a very large piece of playing for your country, and I can see that in him, and we will support that always.
“I really hope that they qualify for the World Cup. That would be an amazing achievement for them, and personally for Denis.”
Cherundolo lived a comparable experience during his own playing days, shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic from German side Hannover 96 to the United States for more than a decade.
“There’s a toll, there’s a price for sure, physically. That is just impossible to talk away,” he said of Bouanga’s scheduling rigors. “But I think we do a pretty good job of managing his minutes when he gets back, and his loading in training to get the most out of him when he does get back. It’s also in moments like that where others need to step up, and that’s happened in the past, too.”
4′ Denis Bouanga ⚽️
34′ Denis Bouanga ⚽️
38′ Denis Bouanga ⚽️@BouangaDenis wastes no time with a first half hat trick for Gabon in World Cup Qualifiers. 🇬🇦 pic.twitter.com/RR21e3Evo2— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 4, 2025
Bouanga x Aubameyang
It helps all parties that Bouanga has struck up devastating partnerships on both his teams, quickly connecting with LAFC’s smash summer signing Son Heung-Min just as he has with Gabon superstar Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, now at Olympique Marseille, who is currently enjoying a late-career renaissance at age 36.
“I have a great understanding with Pierre, whether off the pitch or on it. It’s pretty much the same relationship I have with Sonny,” said Bouanga. “Every time we meet up in the national team, we both hope to score, make passes.
“I want to qualify for the World Cup so he has the chance to do it too, to play in a World Cup. Because we all know the player he is – an African Footballer of the Year winner. And what he’s doing at the moment in Marseille is exceptional.”
There’s now a special sense of urgency considering Gabon are close to earning their first-ever place in a World Cup. While Côte d’Ivoire hold pole position for automatic qualification from Group F, Bouanga & Co. could still catch them with the right confluence of results, and if they don’t, are on track for a playoff slot that could advance them to FIFA’s intercontinental playoffs.
Such an achievement would bring worldwide exposure for a developing country often wracked by hardship and political instability since its independence from France in 1960.
These possibilities power Bouanga onward, wherever he finds himself lacing up his boots.
“I think about it a lot,” said Bouanga of his dream to lead Les Panthères on a Stateside adventure next summer. “I know that there are a lot of people who know me here in the United States, and it would be magnificent to come with my national team, to play on grounds that I already know. It would be magnificent for me and magnificent also for Gabon.
“It can be extraordinary for the country. It can fix a lot of things. I think it will give a lot of joy to the Gabonese people. I can’t describe this moment – I want to experience it.”
Read MoreLaine Klemp