The pitch at Mercedes-Benz Stadium won’t be the only thing split down the middle when the Los Angeles Football Club’s FIFA Club World Cup journey begins against English power Chelsea FC on Monday in Atlanta,
Sujin Lee, 36, a resident of Koreatown, made sure that her seats for the Group D opener were as close to midfield as she could get. Not because that’s a preferred vantage point. But because spiritually, in her soccer-charged soul, she didn’t have another choice.
“I’m literally in the middle because I feel like I’m caught in between two of my children,” Lee said. “I don’t know who I really want to win. Jokingly, I’ve always been telling my friends I hope both teams have fun out there.”
As a former president of the L.A. Chelsea Blues, an official chapter of the Chelsea FC supporters in England, Lee would have never imagined getting to see her club play a competitive match in the U.S. without rooting her head off.
As a former vice president and early adopter of LAFC’s independent supporters union, the 3252, Lee could not have pictured the Black & Gold going toe-to-toe against the world’s biggest teams and not go absolutely crazy for them.
However, when LAFC outlasted Club América on May 31 to qualify for the 32-team tournament, that was the dilemma Lee and others in her position were forced to face.
“As soon as LAFC clinched, I got a lot of messages,” Lee said. “‘Who are you going for? Who are you rooting for?’”
Lee’s support for the Blues sprouted the day she watched Chelsea beat Liverpool from a friend’s couch on May 11, 2003, which turned out to be a crucial match in the 120-year-old West London club’s existence. That win prompted Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich to purchase a controlling interest and inject massive resources into a team that went on to deliver five Premier League titles, five FA Cups, two Europa Leagues, two UEFA Champions Leagues and, in 2021, a Club World Cup.
Chelsea’s Champions League success in 2021, aided by the fantastic efforts of current LAFC forward Olivier Giroud, also locked in a berth to the expanded 2025 Club World Cup tournament.
“I just fell in love with that team more and more,” Lee said. “I’ve been very fortunate to see them win these cups and add on to their history, but it’s really the people that I’ve met that have become lifelong friends for me.”
Ahead of the first of three group matches in 12 days, the best-case scenario for Lee’s loves is that they advance to the knockout portion of the 32-team competition, past Group D competitors ES Tunis and Brazilian stalwart Flamengo.
For Chelsea that has to be expected. Upstart LAFC? Not so much. But way before the dream or potential dream or wisp of a potential dream to play the likes of Chelsea even existed, Lee and people like her — football and English Premier League diehards — were courted to inject something they grew to love from afar into a Major League Soccer franchise located where they lived.
While Lee was in her third year as president of the LA Chelsea Blues in 2017, the group was invited to tour LAFC’s experience center for the first time. The Blues featured a few Galaxy supporters in the group who weren’t going to forsake the then five-time MLS Cup winners for the league’s newest franchise. There were a few England-only watchers who sneered at MLS. But for the uncommitted, the opportunity to build a supporter culture from the ground floor carried an enticing dimension.
Like Lee, whom he got to know through the Blues and got to know better through the 3252, Brian Narvaez was drawn into “co-creating” with LAFC after Rich Orosco and Patrick Aviles, who led the initial community outreach for the Black & Gold, pitched a project that went well beyond a run-of-the-mill experience European footie fans might have presumed from an MLS franchise.
“We never thought the vision that Rich was preaching would come to life the way it did,” Narvaez said. “The energy on the first matchday against Seattle was just insane. These matches, even now, they’ve become a reunion of sorts for us. It’s become such an incredible community. I’ve made so many connections because of this that to think at some point we were trying to reject it or we were kind of shy about it and didn’t really want to go into it, Rich’s crazy vision changed our minds. It really showed the potential. We lived it out.”
Said Lee: “How often do you get to experience something from the ground up like that? Usually, people join later. They join the hype. This was a gamble on something that wasn’t even created yet. Hasn’t even taken place yet. We didn’t have a player at that time, kind of thing.”
Orosco, a Tottenham Hotspur FC supporter since 2012, said his commitment to waking up at 4 a.m. to catch games while diving into the English pub culture around L.A. taught him invaluable lessons about sports culture writ large.
That also helped him speak the same language to Premier League diehards, including more Arsenal than Chelsea supporters, who in turn proselytized LAFC to casual football-watchers in their orbit and brought accountability to the 3252’s formative years.
“Everyone felt like they had a key to the party and to co-create what we wanted our club to be like,” Orosco said. “That, I think, was the most powerful thing. That was the magic.”
Less than a decade later, Narvaez, who resides in Ontario and makes the early morning trips to Joxer Daly’s in Culver City to watch Chelsea, has “never felt a connection with a sports team as I do with LAFC.”
Joining the Chelsea ranks at the age of 13 when his father brought home one of the club’s blue jerseys following a trip to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Narvaez went all in. A month later he took a train and two busses by himself from Whittier to the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica to catch an autograph signing with the likes of John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho, who took it upon themselves to swap the Chelsea kit his father gifted him for a new one that included they all signed, which he still owns and cherishes.
Capping his 33rd birthday weekend in Atlanta, the 20-year Chelsea supporter and current L.A. Blues president intends to march into Mercedes-Benz Stadium with the 3252 and, like Lee, saturate himself among both fan bases on game day.
“I still can’t believe it,” Narvaez said. “It feels like someone is pranking me right now.”
The surreal experience has led Lee, who also co-founded the Tigers Supporter Group, one of nine subsections that comprise the official LAFC fan base across the city, to contemplate breaking a cardinal rule of sports fandom by straddling her allegiances and wearing both teams’ colors.
“There’s still people who are making me choose,” she said. “But I refuse to do so because I think somehow both can win.”
FIFA CLUB WORLD CUP: LAFC VERSUS CHELSEA FC
When: Monday, 12 p.m.
Where: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga.
TV: TBS, DAZN.com, DAZN app+, TUDN, UniMás
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