Pitching a Rivalry?

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July 27, 2017, could go down as the day the rivalry between Los Angeles Football Club and LA Galaxy got started.

That’s when LAFC, Major League Soccer’s new kids on the block, announced that veteran manager Bob Bradley would become the team’s first head coach. The club, which had promised a major announcement a day earlier, revealed the news in a video posted to Twitter featuring the 59-year-old, donned in a black and gold LAFC cap and track jacket, slowly lifting his head to face the camera.

The actual moment the rivalry started might be traced to an hour or so before Bradley made his debut. That’s when the long-established Galaxy announced that two-time MLS Coach of the Year Sigi Schmid would become its new manager. Schmid has won the MLS Cup twice as a coach, and he has won more games than any other manager in league history.

It’s not clear whether or not the timing of the announcements was purely coincidental – the Galaxy had been mired in a midseason slump – but fans of both teams definitely took note on social media.

Rivalries can help drive TV ratings and attendance, so if one were to develop between LAFC and the Galaxy, it could do wonders to build up interest.

But LAFC has a long way to go before it can be taken as a threat to the Galaxy – at least on the field, or pitch.

The Galaxy, one of the league’s original 10 teams, has won the MLS Cup five times, more than any other franchise. And its history of signing star players such as Landon Donovan, David Beckham and Steven Gerrard has given the club a presence on the world stage.

LAFC Executive Chairman Peter Guber (see Q&A on page 16) was not eager for his club to appear too big for its britches.

“We have a ways to go before we have a real rivalry on the pitch,” said Guber. “It’s a little premature.”

Galaxy President Chris Klein also downplayed the notion of a rivalry in a June interview with soccer magazine FourFourTwo:

“True rivalries are built with what happens on the field and playing in big games where there’s something meaningful on the line,” Klein said.

But meaning, of course, is subjective. Major intracity soccer rivalries such as Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid, or AC Milan and Inter Milan, are big-time affairs no matter the records of each team.

Contests between UCLA and USC can also claim a similar level of intensity.

MLS can only hope the same can one day be said of the Galaxy and LAFC.

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