Pain, revisited (Philly vs LAFC)

Philly Union host LAFC this evening in leg 1 of the Concacaf Champions League semifinal. A treatise on two cities, on rivalry, and on pain, revisited.

Philadelphia, Los Angeles. 

That’s 2 of America’s 10 largest cities. They exist across the coasts, and world’s apart. You could say the same of their soccer teams.

Worlds apart

I’ve written about the ethos of Philadelphia before, back when MLS restarted. It involves being the underdog, believing yourself the underdog, deep seated attachments to working class roots, and getting in fights with everyone. 

Actually, that last part’s a tired cliche. We’ll fight you about it. 

The identity is obviously a bit more complex. And outside the broader northeast, our ways and means are simply misunderstood— profoundly. 

Every now and then, though, somebody gets it!

For example this news reporter from San Diego, in town when the Phils hosted the Padres in the 2022 National League Championship Series. 

Guy turns to the camera and nails the ethos almost as perfectly as Jason Kelce did after the Super Bowl, saying: “It’s funny, they will yell profanities at you… then they will say welcome to Philadelphia, and they are the nicest people in the world.”

He gets it! That’s us! That’s the northeast! That’s Philly, baby. 

Over 2,700 miles away from us, the world has Los Angeles. The world tends to visit them more. 

Trophies tend to visit them more, too. For what Los Angeles has that we do not is shiny, alluring things like Hollywood, palm trees, film stars, and sports franchises that actually win the whole championship, and then importantly, keep doing it for years. 

What Philadelphia has instead of that is a proud, storied sports town; a town full of teams that claw their way to a final, fall just short, or perhaps win once or twice, and then disappear for a decade. 

Every now and then- so separated by coasts and final berths as we are- the two of us meet. And when we do meet, it feels like meeting a personality foil of some kind, a perfectly formed sports-foil, from a city whose very name is the antithesis of yours. 

Now, I must come clean that I like Los Angeles. Truth be told, I like it a lot. It’s an enormous place, a diverse place, an interesting place. They have better weather than us. They have proximity to national parks. 

And it would be a stretch to call Los Angeles Philadelphia’s main sporting enemy— at least, not outside our newfound feud in soccer.

To some extent, for one thing, I imagine lots of cities see LA the way we do. And truth be told, it’s possible LA (outside of the FC part) doesn’t think about us very much. 

For Philly as a whole (for our collective, citywide sports brain, not limited to soccer) our most natural far-off enemy is obviously in Dallas, home of The Cowboys. That rivalry hasn’t yet touched our soccer team. But if anyone needs us to launch an anti-Dallas crusade anyway, let us know. 

Philly’s foes of more frequent encounter and subsequent banter of course reside due north, in both Boston and New York. And across multiple sports now, the further off foe throwing thorns in our side lives, actually, in Atlanta. 

What LA means to us mostly is juxtaposition—- a juxtaposition full of teams we’d love to beat. 

And when we do meet, it’s… eventful.  

The most recent, painful meeting, is of course last year’s MLS Cup final. 

Gareth Bale equalizer at the death. The stuff of nightmares

It was the furthest Philly had ever gone in the MLS playoffs. It was fought valiantly. It was ours for the taking. It was fumbled at the death, and lost in penalties. 

Yesterday, Alejandro Bedoya rightly called that game an instant classic, easily one of the best finals Major League Soccer has ever seen. For Union fans, it’s a “classic” that could sting for decades.

It’s not the first time LA has stung us, close to a championship.

For example, may I present to you the emotional high point of another Philly sports classic, and one with devastating ends. Ladies and gentleman, “The Answer” vs. Los Angeles:

“The Answer” is, of course, Allen Iverson. So he was named by a city whose basketball team hadn’t been overly good or cool since the sequential eras when Julius Erving was floating through the air in Converse Pro Leathers, or Charles Barkley was starting fights in the paint.  

Funny enough, when the Sixers won their last championship (back in the Dr. J era NBA) they did it by beating the Lakers. That was 1983. And when they fell short in the finals the few years before that, it was to the Los Angeles Lakers they fell. 

But like a true Philadelphia sports team, after winning the championship, they proceeded to disappear. The later-80s were dominated by the Lakers and their more famous east coast rival in Boston. The Sixers didn’t find another final until “The Answer” showed up. 

When Iverson did take Philly back to the finals, in 2001, overcoming the Kobe and Shaq era Lakers was quite the underdog’s taking. But like the city responsible for Rocky that we are, we thought we’d get it done. 

LA won the series 4-1. They went on to win 4 championships since then. The Sixers, once again, proceeded to disappear. 

But Philly did win that first game. They landed in Los Angeles and came out swinging. A.I. showed up at the top of his game, scoring 48 points. 

After that, Shaq and Kobe took over.

We were left with a waning hope, defined by that one, bright, shining moment of victory- ingrained deep into my childhood brain- encapsulated most succinctly by Allen Iverson crossing up Tyronn Lue, then stepping over him: 

The soccer teams

When Philadelphia Union accrued an accidental rival across the coast, LAFC couldn’t have been any more fitting. 

The juxtapositions spin out exponentially, and aren’t limited to coastal contrasts in location, or previously sporting rivalry. As Jim Curtin told the press yesterday in Chester: 

“I think the games on the field between us in the past speak for themselves. I think we bring the best out of each other. They've been amazing games. And in some ways, I think you go to the old boxing adage that styles make fights. It's different styles, no question about it. It's teams that, like I said, the way we play, the way they play, it tends to be different. And it's similar to two heavyweights getting together that have a different way of playing. There's no one right way to play in this game. And I think we, again, bring the best out of each other.”

Two heavyweights with different styles, indeed. 

Beyond tactical approach, the clubs are both well run and successful. But they operate with vastly different fiscal approaches. According to salary data released by the MLS Players Association, Philly entered last year’s MLS Cup Final ranking second to last in the league for active clubs’ total guaranteed salaries.  

LAFC’s guaranteed salary budget was 7th from the top, spending nearly exactly *double* that of Philadelphia. 

The salaries of two players alone– Gareth Bale ($2,386,667) and Carlos Vela ($2,737,500)– equated to exactly *half* of the Philadelphia roster. At the time, the highest paid Union player was Danish striker Mikael Uhre, who took home a guaranteed income of $1,666,250. The only other Union player making more than one million in guaranteed income was veteran Alejandro Bedoya, coming in at $1,110,000. 

That contrast in monetary approach (as well as the trust and reliance Philadelphia places on academy players) was perhaps no better exemplified than in the latter stages of last year’s MLS Cup Final. 

LAFC’s late, game-changing substitution was none other than global phenom Gareth Bale. Bale went on to score an equalizer at the death, necessitating the penalties that killed us. Shortly before that, Jim Curtin had sent 19 year old Paxten Aaronson in from the other side. 

Accidental rivals of consequential effect. You couldn’t write it better in the movies. 

Pain, revisited

Maybe it’s me. I can’t say for certain. But Jim Curtin seemed to sit before the press yesterday wearing a weighted cloak of emotion. He wants this victory, I thought, badly. 

But Curtin wisely downplayed any suggestion of “revenge”:

“You know, the word revenge, you know, I wouldn't use that one. It's an opportunity for us to now try to beat a very good team, and get into the final of a major competition on our continent. So, I'm not going to give you any fuel for the fire, or for the bulletin board.”

But I swear, I heard an emotion in his voice not always present. 

Tonight will be a few things. It will first of all be the first time Philadelphia and LAFC face one another after a historic, entertaining MLS Cup Final:

Twice, LAFC took the lead that day in California. And twice, Philadelphia responded. In extra time, it was Philly that struck first. They were winning the game in the waning minutes, the biggest victory in club history within grasp. But Gareth Bale, out of nowhere, had a thunderous reply. 3-3. The Union flailed through ensuing penalties, and lost their greatest opportunity. 

Curtin has said he’s never rewatched it. Truth be told, neither have I. 

But if it can’t be rewatched, perhaps it can be rectified. For first this evening, and then next Tuesday, Philadelphia can prove capable of a delayed response of their own, one propelling them toward the opportunity of a different, major trophy. 

This evening, just south of Philadelphia

LAFC comes into this match undefeated in the MLS regular season. They’re the only team left yet to be defeated.

Philadelphia comes into it faltering. They rank 7th in the eastern conference. And though they arrive from a convincing win against Toronto, they also arrive with the weight of a slow start, and the pressure of a past that needs rectifying. 

Curtin has talked often about that pressure, and the fluctuating confidence associated. The team isn’t fully clicking yet. The confidence won’t simply arrive out of nowhere. 

The hope, I suppose, is that it arrives right now, tonight, at specifically the time it’s most needed. 

I must admit, watching Philly fumble the start to this year has struck a chord of Philadelphia-specific foreboding. The fear, I suppose, is the Union progress in a direction that’s all too familiar. Rather than continue forward, establishing an ascendant dynasty more long-lasting, it’s possible they regress, drastically or slightly, taking a longer time to re-emerge where they found themselves last November.  

The “revenge” Curtin wouldn’t speak of is certainly on the table this evening. But the other thing on the table is the statement that this season is not a regression— or won’t be. 

They’ll want to prove, tonight, that this remains an emerging dynasty— that this team, with this talent, and this manager, will accomplish more than “just short”. And who better to prove that against, than Los Angeles (FC)?

As Curtin told the media yesterday, of individual players, of necessary performances, and this spotlight’s opportunity: these are the nights that will make us.