A Hater’s Guide to LAFC

Welcome to a Hater’s Guide to LAFC.

As always minimal effort has been put into this. There has been little research, next to zero editing and there’s a legitimate chance that you won’t find any of this entertaining in any way. If you take any of this seriously you deserve to be made fun of. As a commenter once eloquently stated even after reading a disclaimer about how dumb and irrevocably pointless this article would be…

“This is a waste of time. Nothing here folks.”

Wow y’all imma be totally honest it’s going to be really hard for me to find any hate here. This is the team that brought Zlatan Ibrahimovic into the league. I mean say what you want about the guy but he’s immensely entertaining. The acrobatics, the quotes, a flair for the unbelievably dramatic. For me to disparage a team that worked out a deal for one of the best players in the world to enter the league at a seemingly minimal rate would be beyond me and ——————-Oh, this isn’t that team? This is the other team? And this team is also in Los Angeles? And they were also playing in the Zlatan game? Yes, I did watch only the second half, why do you ask?

Ok this one might be tough. They’ve apparently only been a team for **checking** five week. Hard to hate on that. I guess you could insult them for having no “history” or whatever but that would be lazy and bogus and a transparent projection of your own insecurities about having never won anything yourself in a league that’s still growing and changing. You’d have to be the kind of person that unironically wears jean shorts to say something like that....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Anyway, guess I’ll have to get creative in finding something to make fun of and OHMYGOD THEIR MANAGER IS BOB BRADLEY.

The Manager

Hahahaahahhahahhahahahahhahhahahahahahhahahahahaahahahhahahaha I can’t hahahhahahahah hold on I’ll be good soon I just hahhahahhahahaahahahaaaahahhahahhahhahahahahhaahahahahahhaha ok, ok I think I’m good...

The Manag-HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA BOB BRADLEY. BOB. BRADLEY.

I lied.

No, really, the manager.

Bradley began his MLS career with the Chicago Fire in the club’s first year of existence in 1998. That team won the double by virtue of having the least amount of players pick up the ball with their hands or however American soccer worked back then. Bradley firmly believes that this team would beat any other expansion club in MLS history. It’s hard to disagree when that side boasted world class talents in the prime of their career like.....uhh...Lubos Kibik and................Piotr Nowak I guess?

Bradley left for the MetroStars in 2002 where he made the playoffs once and won something called La Manga Cup in which the trophy was handed over by a larger than life Pikachu mascot I guess or something? I don’t know what Manga actually is and I’m not looking it up, do not @ me.

The MetroStars fired Bradley for poor performance in 2005, the MLS equivalent of being let go from a substitute teaching job for not being able to put the Bill Nye tape into the VCR correctly.

Bradley’s next stop was coincidentally Los Angeles to take over the old edition of Chivas USA. He led the team to an acceptable third place finish in 2006 and fell upward into managing the US Men’s National Team when they couldn’t acquire their first choice, no really their first choice, Jurgen Klinsmann.

In 2011 the USMNT finally got their man and fired Bradley to make way for Klinsmann. Bradley left to take control of the Egyptian Men’s National Team but got fired again three years later.

Bradley traveled to Norway to take over Stabæk. He was fired allowed to leave and pursue other opportunities.

Bradley left for French Ligue 2 side Le Havre AC where he was somehow not fired. He actually moved on to manage English Premier League side Swansea City, an impressive and momentous accomplishment for an American manager and one the American soccer community can be tremendously proud of and he was fired after 85 days.

He now manages LAFC. He has not been fired yet.

The Club

LAFC was announced in late October, 2014. They then spent three+ years kinda just messing around before realizing they needed kits, and a social media team and, erm, players. The whole vibe has the feel of a grad student doing no work on a thesis for two years then trying to put it together the night before.

Oh man, we need kits?

LAFC released their first ever kits through a short video on Twitter at 8 a.m. Pacific time on a Saturday morning two weeks before their first game.

After three years of allotted planning time, they never quite got past the “Create-a-team on FIFA” stage of the process.

These kits were so exciting the LAFC social media team decided they were worthy of throwing them on the carpet of the team headquarters/office rental space next to an Orange Julius in a Redondo Beach mall and taking a few glamour shots. Colors are cool though, I guess.

The biggest disappointment though is that they weren’t able to even find a sponsor for the kit.

Oh man, we have to announce the coach AND the players?

As the three members of the LAFC front office continued to get hammered at the Long Beach Applebee’s (no not that one, the other one), the team’s only intern approached slowly.

“Excuse me.”

They continued to pound Dollaritas.

“Umm, excuse me.”

They continued to ignore her.

“Excuse me I have —” she reached out to tap the nearest front office member of the shoulder. He wheeled around before her hand reached his suit.

‘What do you want?”

“I have Mr. Bradley’s people on your phone.”

She handed the flip phone over. An original Nokia.

“Yeah Brad, we’ve been talking and did you know your cellular phone can take video now? Just take one of those and send it to our intern.”

He fired the phone back to the intern.

“Are sure that’s all you want to do?” she asked.

The trio thought for a moment. A wave of joy washed over the nearest front office member. He had an idea.

“Make him put on a hat!”

The three nodded in agreement and returned to the Applebee’s bartender they had nicknamed Gumby for no reason. The intern left and waited for the video.

Oh man, we have to come up with chants now too?*

*a reminder that Atlanta invented every chant ever. And also soccer. You’re welcome.

Oh man, we need players???

Up until late February, LAFC only had 18 players. Two weeks before the season they didn’t even have enough to field a full team sheet barring an injury. To their credit though, the players they have seem pretty good and their lack of depth definitely won’t come back to bite them in any way going forward.

Anything else?

No, not really. We’ll keep this one pretty short. They’re new. Should be a good game tomorrow. The hate is minimal and the fear of our depleted back line getting torched by Vela and Co. is real.

Anyway, LOOKIT