Let’s make this a legendary day.
It all comes down to this.
The 2022 season has been full of twists and turns, but LAFC are hosting the 2022 MLS Cup Final on Saturday, and that’s not insignificant.
They played well enough to ensure home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, including this title game, and it’s well-deserved. For the supporters who will be at The Banc, showing up at ungodly hours to don black-and-gold, commingle with your community and cheer on the home team when the time comes, thank you. You deserve this and you built this.
If you’re not at the stadium, that’s ok. We can’t all be there in person, but your work, your effort to watch the games, read the stories, listen to the podcasts, buy the merch, make the water-cooler bets, helped get us to this point today, too. Thank you.
To the people who work in the offices at LAFC, from the ticket reps to the controlling owners, you do the work most of us don’t see. The same goes for the service workers, the grounds crew, the medical and training staff, the technical team. You are so important to this whole enterprise, and you’ve done great work. Thank you.
To the coaches, some of your work is obvious for all to see and some of it is completely obscured. You’re on the metaphorical firing line all the time, and you have one of the most stressful jobs in the world. You deserve to be here, thank you for all the hard work.
To the players, now. We also don’t see all the work you put in — we see what you do for 90 minutes, once a week or so. That’s not all you do, it’s a tiny fraction of the work you put in, from the time you were little boys with nothing but a dream. You’re at the verge of the pinnacle, and for all the sacrifices you’ve made, all the injuries you’ve endured, all of the doubts you’ve had to push out of your mind, the abuse you’ve had to bear, unfairly, thank you for giving us joy.
It takes all of us to make this community. We’re all here for different reasons, but over the last several years, dating back to this time way back in 2014, the groundwork has been set for this moment. From random tailgates to sold-out stadia, from social media to in-person meetings, from seeing the stars on TV to seeing them at meet-and-greets, we’ve made connections in myriad ways, but they are connections. We mourn those we’ve lost and keep them in our hearts as we continue down the path.
So enjoy Saturday, no matter what happens. We hope it will be a happy ending, of course, but we get so few moments to reflect on the community we’ve all built, together. This is not the end point, however. It’s only just the beginning for LAFC, and we are all with you.
What do you think? Leave a comment below.