LOS ANGELES – The new stadium plans of a noisy neighbor up the I-110 freeway are not frightening the LA Galaxy or Club President Chris Klein.
Rather, Klein welcomes and praises the new group as the Galaxy plan to go full steam ahead with a collective philosophy that forges ahead regardless of Los Angeles Football Club’s announced intentions to build a stadium in Exposition Park.
“I’m very happy for them and happy for the league. When they come into the league, it will be something that is exciting,” Klein told LAGalaxy.com “I look at this as a real positive for soccer in this country and for us. We welcomed Chivas USA back in 2005 and we’ll welcome LAFC when they come into MLS in 2018."
On Monday, LAFC unveiled plans to build a $250-million privately funded soccer complex on the current site of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. In order to build the 22,000-seat venue, LAFC will demolish the iconic 56-year-old Sports Arena, which should allow the new Major League Soccer club to enter the league by the 2018 MLS regular season.
As the large ownership group of LAFC touted their plans for a stadium that sits five minutes from Downtown Los Angeles, much of the chatter has centered on whether the Galaxy must change their philosophy to compete with the newcomers. However, Klein believes that for the Galaxy, the best course is forward.
“We don’t change,” Klein said. “The things that we do as we build our team and we build our club in this city and community, we’ve had a specific goal. We want to win first, and win a certain way, with a certain group of players, and we’re going to continue to do that. We’re as aggressive as we’ve ever been in L.A. The ideals that we hold are ones that we’ve built over a long period of time, and those aren’t changing… We’re going full steam ahead”
To explain Klein’s stance, the club president believes that you have to look no further than how his club dealt with LAFC’s predecessors Chivas USA. When Chivas USA entered the league in 2005, it was seen as a competitor to a Galaxy club that has been in existence since 1996. Just a mere 10 years later, poor attendance and failures on the field forced MLS to shutter the club, paving the way for LAFC to join the league.
Klein calls LAFC ownership a “good group of guys” who will benefit Major League Soccer but reveals their existence will not change how his club does business.
“If we stopped to react to everything that teams did in our league then we wouldn’t go anywhere,” said Klein. “We very much look at it like we’re being chased by everyone and that includes LAFC. It doesn’t change what we do, very much at all.”
Given LAFC’s bravado and the fact that they will one day lineup against the Galaxy, there has been some temptation to refer to the two team’s relationship as a rivalry.
But Klein is quick to quash any talk of the two clubs currently being rivals.
That won’t happen until 2018—at the earliest—and will depend on how LAFC performs on the field, rather than just in press conferences.
“Rivalries are built over time,” Klein said. “We have to wait until 2018 and beyond before we start calling it that.”
Adam Serrano is the LA Galaxy Insider. Read his blog at LAGalaxy.com/Insider and contact him at LAGalaxyInsider@Gmail.com.
