The rivalry: Galaxy-Red Bulls II

In the wake of Wednesday’s post bemoaning a lack of rivals for the Galaxy ahead of Friday’s game with the New York Red Bulls in Carson I chatted with a friend who is a member of the LA Riot Squad at our mutually favorite local watering hole in Torrance.

He pointed out that U.S. soccer fans tend to stick together considering we are the minority in a nation that overwhelmingly prefers pointyball football.

For instance, when the Red Bulls and the Columbus Crew played in MLS Cup in Carson a couple of years ago the Riot Squad hosted New York fans, while the Angel City Brigade hosted supporters of the other team.

Know what, he said? All the fan groups got along great.

I just can’t see, say, fans of London club Millwall (whose fan base is shall we say, infamous for their passion – to put it mildly) doing that same same sort of thing to fans of ANY other club. In England, fans following their team on the road have to be careful about what part of a city they go to, never mind avoid certain pubs.

Still, rivalry doesn’t necessarily mean a degree of hostility exists as perhaps my post Thursday implied.

Proof of that is that fans of both teams have adopted a Twitter hash tag to communicate with each other in the run-up to the game: #LAvNY

Check out what fans are saying here.

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