What’s up fellow Gz??? As you may or may not know, depending on if you’ve read previous posts, I moved away from the beautiful city of LA, Home of the Greatest Soccer team in the world, the LA Galaxy of course!!!

Fun fact that I learned this weekend, the Chicago Fire started out playing in Naperville, which is the city I now live in. How did I find this out?? My fellow LARS compadre Joaquin told me it’s in one of our OG LARS chants.

Galaxy Hymn

(To the tune of The Marines’ Hymn)

From the heart of downtown Naperville

To the slums of San Jose

From the empty seats of Arrowhead

To deserted Tampa Bay

From the darkest swamps of Meadowlands,

Down to Washington DC

The best team in America

Is the La Galaxy

http://lariotsquad.org/chants/



And how fuckin right is that Hymn?? The best team in America!

Anyway, history class over. Now for the present… I have gone to one real Galaxy away game in San Jose and the other I don’t count since it was down in Skid Row where that other team plays. So here we are, about 7 weeks into my new adventure in Chicago and the Galaxy plays FC Cincinatti. Just a short 5 hour drive through the midwest and there I am. Smack dab in the middle of America. Rolled in about 2 PM eastern time and I was set to cheer on my team in a different city.

Snapped a quick pic before I headed out to the bar the Galaxy set for us to hang out before the game. The bar was packed!!! With FC Cincinatti fans…. WTF. We walked to another bar. I believe this one was called Keystone and guess what was on the menu??? Golden Road beers!! Fuck yeah. I’m not a huge fan but if there’s an LA beer on the menu, I’m most likely trying it. An FC Cincinatti fan walked up to our table and talked to us for a good 15 minutes. She was cool, told us about her supporters group and how she had been traveling to away games most of the year. She was pretty much the epitome of the FC Cincinatti fan. Everyone that talked to us was nice. There was no one trying to start shit. ALL COOL fan interaction, as it should be. I mean, yeah… We sure got dirty looks but everyone was respectful and of course, as were we. I was rolling 2 deep. My BFF on one side all decked out with a Gz flag draped as a cape and a new LARS friend that came out from LA. We drank some food and ate some beers then headed out, back to the bar where Gz fans were. We also found other Gz fans sprinkled throughout. Definitely a few Zlatan jerseys as well.

You can tell from the pic, it looked as if this game was sponsored by Retros Y Rarezas. These guys were all ACB guys. We all hung out and had beers. One of the guys let me try on his R y R jersey since I’ve been wanting to order one but I’ve been unsure of what size. XL it is!!! I got hooked up with some cool ACB stickers, including my new favorite sticker.

After a couple of brews, we walked over to the stadium which was a five minute walk. Security was so lax, at least by LA standards. From where we walked in, the away section was right in front on the upper level. I would say we had a great view, reminiscent of the LARS section although one level up.





Did I mention I got the Pride Practice jersey? I really like the way it looks an was glad MLS Store was able to hook it up with Next day air so it came on time.

ACB had a LOS ANGELES banner and right at the whistle, the chants started. I know some ACB chants so I joined along for most of them. Fam, I was back!!! I missed this so much! I miss LARS! We got 2 quick goals and it seemed like we could have gotten 2 more in the first 20 minutes. Ema finally found the back of the net! I was ecstatic! Of course I had to act as the announcer and yelled “Galaxy goal!! scored by number 24, Emmanuel….” and how fuckin awesome was it that everyone yelled “BOATENG!!!” Repeated 2 more times and said thank you, as a gentleman should. Then I hadn’t even stopped celebrating when we got another! Unfortunately, with all the commotion, I couldn’t even tell who scored it so it was a ome and done as announcer for me.

I was starting to feel kinda thirsty which is gonna bring me to my #1 complaint about this stadium. There were beer vendors selling beer out of aluminum coolers which was cool but they were cash only! So we walked for a bit looking for an ATM. Guess what???? There was one ATM in the whole place!!! We waited in line and talked to a nice couple who were at their first FC Cincinatti game.

We got our cash and I got myself a Coozie and a Cincinatti brewed beer which appears to have been brewed for the team! Ignore the cars in the pic, I took it the next day. I promise I had the same beer at the game as well. I’m actually having one right now as well.

Got back to our seats and the atmosphere changed. I’m not sure if these guys were just tired but ACB was done chanting. They were seated. I was confused. I was ready to start the chants. So I channeled the powers of the great Capo Andrew Alesana and rattled off a few of the chants that I know. It was awesome! I did my best and people chanted back. I loved it. I tried the Nothing but a G Thang chant but no one else knew the words! Haha… I tried! All in all, it was an awesome experience. My girl had a great time, which hopefully opens the doors for more away games in the future.









I left the game happy but also, missing that gameday LARS experience more. But alas, the night was not over! (I’ve always wanted to use that word)





We did a little bit of city exploring and since it was Pride celebration weekend in Cincy, there was plenty to do. We found an outdoor concert and got ourselves a PRIDE Bud Light. Also found a Galactic fried chicken truck. My girlfriend saw me walking towards and she just laughed because of course I’m gonna take a picture with almost anything that says some form of the word Galaxy!





I can’t wait for my next Galaxy game. I’m saddened that I’m so far away and can’t be there with you all on gamedays. I hope to see you all soon!!! Gz up!