For better or for worse, every expansion team that joins MLS with high-level aspirations is going to be compared to the double-winning Chicago Fire of 1998.
And if you happen to be an expansion side led by the same coach from that 1998 Fire team, you can bet those comparisons will be turned up to the max.
With LAFC traveling to face Bradley’s former team for the first time in Club history on Saturday, the comparisons between LAFC and the Fire have definitely been cranked up. Add to it LAFC’s 50 points this season with five matches left to play – just six points adrift of the MLS record for an expansion team of 56 set by the 1998 Fire – and despite the Fire being eliminated from playoff contention after a midweek loss to NYCFC, this match has intrigue.
In a way, it almost has history.
“Years ago, when I went to Chicago, I had a real sense of the diversity in Chicago and the love of football, and we felt that we needed to have a team that people would jump on board with us right away,” Bradley said of building that Fire team back in 1998.
Sound familiar? When Bradley was hired as LAFC’s first head coach in July of 2017, he had this to say about the challenge in front of him:
“What I look forward to most of all is trying to make sure we can put a team that connects with the people and the diversity. A team that excites and represents. That is what it is all about.”
Asked ahead of the Chicago match how that commitment to diversity and a city has shaped his career, Bradley insists it’s not an original idea. It’s immediately evident as a core principle of any great side in world football. And while It’s a cornerstone, it’s not the entire structure of a team.
“I’ve always looked around the world and admired the way so many clubs have a real connection to the supporters and to the city,” Bradley said.
“I think you go into every situation with an idea of what identity to you need to achieve with that city and that club. But then, I think you have football ideas that you get with different experiences and you try to create something that puts those two together. Where football-wise, there is a way of playing and it’s something that people in that city are going to be excited to come and support. That there is identity in the way a team competes and the connection that the players have with the supporters. I have always appreciated how important that is and I’ve been lucky in so many different situations to put all of it together.”
Bradley isn’t the only holdover on LAFC’s staff from that 1998 Fire team. Assistant coach Ante Razov, a SoCal native, was with Bradley as a player during the Fire’s inaugural season. Now on the coaching side, Razov sees the similarities in Bradley’s ideals back then in Chicago and now in LA.
“Bob likes to spread it all around and take in all the different information and the different variations of how somebody thinks and how they see the game. And he is able to mold it his model of play,” Razov said following an LAFC training session. “In Chicago, we had a vast group of characters from all parts of the world. He was able to kind of mold us and put us in a position to play to our strengths.
“I think the mix with the city and the Club, the way to lay down the roots with the community first and the fans, obviously different from Chicago, it’s a different city, Los Angeles. But I think there’s a real connection, there’s a real feel between the players, the Club, and the fans and the community. So, I think you see a similar mix in terms of that connection for sure. Now we just have to finish the football side to it.”
Fielding players from 15 different countries, LAFC definitely sees itself as a reflection of the faces in its home stands. And with its stadium in the heart of Los Angeles bursting with energy week in and week out, the team on the pitch has fed off those fans as it takes aim at the Fire’s points record, an eventual playoff berth, and hopefully trophies under Bradley’s guidance.
But while all of those things are reminiscent of Bradley’s time with the Fire back in 1998, Razov couldn’t help but notice some things have changed.
“He’s mellowed a little bit. He’s mellowed just a little bit. Just a bit,” Razov said of Bradley.
“I think LA is getting to him.”
