Tony Leone: LAFC Homegrown Center Back to Liga MX

Born in Long Beach, California, with Mexican eligibility as well, Leone is the kind of dual-national defender MLS academies dream about developing and Liga MX clubs increasingly recruit: tall enough to handle the box, composed enough to play out, and young enough that the story is still being written.

LAFC Academy to Homegrown milestone

Leone came through the LAFC Academy and earned real youth résumé markers along the way, including USSDA Golden Ball recognition in 2018–19 while helping an U-15 side to an outstanding season record.

On July 8, 2020, LAFC signed him to a Homegrown contract. League materials mark him as one of the first three players to join the LAFC first team from the academy — a milestone that matters even when first-team minutes are scarce. In 2020 he was on the bench for senior matches without making an appearance. The signing still answered a pathway question: academy → first-team roster is possible here.

Minutes elsewhere: Las Vegas Lights and LAFC 2

Like many Homegrown defenders, Leone’s early professional reps came away from the MLS spotlight. Club de Fútbol Monterrey’s own signing announcement states that in 2021 he was loaned to Las Vegas Lights in the USL Championship, where he played 43 games.

He returned to Los Angeles in 2023 to play for LAFC 2 in MLS Next Pro, again per Monterrey’s announcement. That pattern is familiar: second-division and reserve football as the laboratory where center backs learn timing, aerial duels against men, and distribution under less forgiving pressure than academy games.

Monterrey, then Pumas on loan

On January 26, 2024, Monterrey announced Leone as a new signing with a contract until December 2026. The club introduced him as a Mexican-American defender from the LAFC academy who had already been capped at youth level by both the United States and Mexico.

Monterrey’s December 22, 2025 exit note says he appeared for Rayados in Liga BBVA MX, Concacaf Champions Cup competition, and Leagues Cup, and that he was part of the squad that competed at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 — without publishing a single aggregate appearance total. The honest read of that chapter is development minutes across competitions, not a locked-in starting role.

In that same announcement, Monterrey confirmed a temporary transfer: Leone joined Pumas UNAM beginning with Clausura 2026, on a one-year loan with an option to buy, framed explicitly as a chase for playing time and experience.

United States and Mexico youth teams

Monterrey’s welcome release is the clean primary checklist:

• United States U-15 and U-17 call-ups
• Mexico U-20 Revelations Cup winners in 2021 (under Luis Pérez)
• 2022 Concacaf U-20 Championship winners, with Leone named to the competition’s Best XI
• 2023 Mexico U-23 call-up; bronze medal at the Pan American Games in Valparaíso

Dual-national defenders live with a recurring decision: which senior federation feels like home? Club form usually decides that before the passport paperwork does.

What center backs can steal from this pathway

1. Academy milestones are real, but incomplete. Homegrown status opens the door; USL/Next Pro minutes fill the résumé.
2. Position honesty matters. Leone’s value is as a central defender — reading the game, winning first contact, playing the first pass.
3. Liga MX can be a development accelerator or a minutes trap. The Pumas loan is the correct response when the parent club cannot guarantee games.
4. Youth national teams are data points, not destinies. Stack club minutes; let federations argue later.

Bottom line

Tony Leone’s story is an LAFC Academy center-back pipeline: Homegrown pioneer, 43 USL games at Las Vegas Lights, Liga MX move to Monterrey through 2026, and a Clausura 2026 loan to Pumas for the minutes every young defender needs. That is the profile the old URL was trying to serve.