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It’s not about them. Or then.
Though you’d think this would be the perfect time for the three guys who where there then, at the beginning of the Galaxy, to regale the talented whippersnappers in their charge with tales of yore. No?
You’d think Greg Vanney, Kevin Hartman and Dan Calichman, the Galaxy coaches who were among the original G’z – OGz? – would relish the opportunity to bask in the good ol’ days.
That they would want to luxuriate in their legacy as players who helped establish the Galaxy as Major League Soccer’s winningest franchise, with its nine MLS Cup Final appearances and five championships going into this season’s title match Saturday afternoon at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson.
Even just for this week leading up to the club’s championship game against the New York Red Bulls – the team formerly known as the New York/New Jersey MetroStars. It was against them that the Galaxy played their first match on April 13, 1996, at the Rose Bowl, before a then-record crowd of of 69,255.
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You’d assume it would be impossible to resist reminiscing about that if you were Vanney or Calichman, who patrolled the back line on that date in history. Stars on the first Galaxy team before circling back in 2021 as the head coach and trusted assistant, taking the reins of a team that hadn’t made the playoffs for four seasons and that remained in such disarray just last year that many of its most ardent fans boycotted matches.
You’d expect it would be hard not to throw on a few campfire stories in camp this week if you were Hartman.
A fan favorite, the bleached-blonde goalkeeper joined Vanney and Calichman in 1997. He wound up playing 10 of his 17 MLS seasons with the Galaxy, winning two MLS Cups, two U.S. Open Cups, two Supporters’ Shields and earning the nickname El Gato in L.A. – where he had been working since 2017 as the director of the L.A. Galaxy Academy before reuniting with Vanney as his goalkeeper coach in 2021.
You’d think. But no.
“We’re reticent, we don’t want to be talking about the good old days,” Hartman said by phone this week, suggesting such focus would not only be misplaced but come across as “maybe a little egotistical.”
“Every once in a while,” said Calichman, noting that when those sorts of conversations happen, it’s with individual players and in the context of how much MLS has grown.
Because, really, these MLS veterans are living for the here and now. Pioneers turned prisoners of the moment, willingly and enthusiastically.
Right now, most of their bandwidth is being spent figuring out how they will overcome the loss of Riqui Puig, the star midfielder who suffered a torn ACL in the 1-0 Western Conference final victory over Seattle last weekend.
How they will defend Lewis Morgan and Emil Forsberg on one end and set up Joseph Paintsil and Gabriel Pec and Dejan Joveljić to do damage on the other. How they will continue to hold serve on their home turf, unbeaten this season at Dignity Health Sports Park, against a team that’s won on the road this postseason against Columbus, New York City FC and Orlando City SC. How they can spoil the Red Bulls’ Cinderella story as the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed …
How could they possibly have time for history lessons right now?
Especially because no one needs a refresher; they already know.
Whether or not they were there then, they know. The trust and belief borne of decades of partnership – Vanney and Hartman weren’t only Galaxy teammates, they also played and roomed together at UCLA; and Calichman was on Vanney’s staff with Toronto FC as that club reached the playoffs in five of six seasons, made three MLS Cup Finals appearances and won it all once – is coursing through this iteration of the Galaxy.
“We all share a passion for this organization and the club and where we want it to be,” Vanney said this week. “But we also have known each other long enough to challenge each other and to put the right questions in front of each other in support. We know where to fill each other’s gaps.”
Such airtight bonds are built through years of hard-earned successes and bitter disappointments, Hartman said.
“We all have this culture of excellence that we share and we’re not going to take any shortcuts to get there,” he said. “We have such longstanding, trusting relationships, I don’t think any of us are afraid to voice our opinions … and if there’s something that comes off wrong, we’re pretty forgiving of one another.”
Calichman should say so: “Hopefully they’re being honest!”
And from that place of understanding, the Galaxy is at last, after a long decade, again living up to the legacy that Vanney, Calichman and Hartman helped create all those years ago.
“Culture can change, but the expectations within the club were set very early,” Calichman said. “In ’96, the Galaxy made it to the MLS Cup final, and unfortunately we didn’t win it, but that expectation was set … we’re a team that is vying for trophies. We’re a team that will work hard. That standard never stopped.”
“Sometimes there’s a burden that comes with a legacy with a team like this,” Vanney said. “But to be able to own that, this group has attacked it from Day One and hasn’t been afraid of it or in awe of it – and has gone for it. That’s one of the beauties of this group.”
Because the best way to honor a legacy isn’t to treat it as a fable.
It’s to write the next chapter.
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