The LA Galaxy came to town on Labor Day weekend to sell some supplements and play a match and I took a party down to Toyota Park to check it all out. Sadly the Euro stars Beckham and Ljundberg were both excluded from game day rosters due to injury and yellow card accumulation, but the chance to see league leaders lock horns with a Fire team desperate for 3 points along with another chance for new Fire signing Nery Castillo to finally make any sort of impact provided more than enough excitement on the day.
The match itself was a bit static; Gonzalo Segares was sent off in the 21st minute for an elbow that may have been either unintentional or one of the craftiest cheap shots I've ever seen and the Fire spent much of the match playing patient defense and counter attacking. Young stud goalie Sean Johnson stoned Lando's penalty kick following the foul and proceeded to have a lights out match, coming up with a number of key saves and generally dominating his box. Nery Castillo was again anonymous, his only notable contribution being a nice but tame shot on goal from a free kick in the second half that was easily saved. The Fire took the lead at the end of regulation on a stunning free kick goal from Collins John, who has now tallied 3 goals against the Galaxy in 2 games, and gave the lead back deep into extra time on a sloppily-defended corner kick goal very similar to the goal that sunk us in Seattle last week. Simply put this team has no idea how to hang on to the ball and kill the clock, and if they don't make the playoffs this year they'll know why.
Post author Bobbie BS in the middle in the blue shirt, along with fellow attendees Ivar, Tomppert and MattThe real item of note at the game was the "Galaxy" fan contingent. In my 10+ years of having season tickets for the Fire I've seen various incarnations of the traveling fan, from enthusiastic drunks from Columbus wearing foam banana costumes to seasoned DC United traveling fans with fully appointed busses bitter over Freddy Adu's failure to launch. However I've never seen anything like this year's Galaxy turnout. Since the Beckham signing the Galaxy have sold their shirt sponsorship to Herbalife, a dietary supplement producer who have been favorably compared to AmWay and unfavorably to a cult. It seems that there must have been a corporate push to turn out big Herbalife fans for this game as my section was full to the brink with them. Perhaps 1/5 of the fans were wearing Galaxy gear; the rest were wearing what looked like bright green Herbalife branded cycling jerseys. All of them were holding personal banners that said "Galaxy" on one side and "Herbalife" on the other. They did a few organized chants- some of "gal ax y! gal ax y!", a few of "me hi co! me hi co!" (they were largely a latino group), but mostly the chants were endless enthusiastic repetitions of "HER BA LIFE! HER BA LIFE!". Many of the men had neon green paint in their hair, matching their Herbalife shirts. Obviously I think this is pretty weird and I don't really know what to make of it. It certainly puts the typical "we want hard core fans, not AYSO outings" discussion into stark relief; these fans really didn't give a crap about the team or the sport, they were there because their brand had ordered them to make a showing in support of said brand. I suppose this is good for the Galaxy in some way, but none of those fans really seemed to identify with the team and none of the cheering had anything to do with what was happening on the field. Are Galaxy home games similarly lobotomized? I have no idea but I think it's unsettling.
The most explosive match on the German soccer calendar has seen its fair share of scandals and shenanigans over the last few years -- from hundreds of inflatable penises in the stands, to stolen fan banners, to cyberattacks on Schalke 04's official club Web site, to even mass brawls between rival supporters in provincial train stations.
