CARSON, Calif. – The LA Galaxy have had a close-knit locker room since Bruce Arena arrived near the end of the 2008 campaign, but this year's group might be the tightest yet, forged by a baby boom and heartbreaking tragedy.
Part of Arena's formula is in building teams with strong chemistry, pairing complementary personalities and men of good character, and this Galaxy team, which meets the New England Revolution in Sunday's MLS Cup final at StubHub Center (3 pm ET, ESPN, UniMas, UDN, TSN1, RDS2), might be his best work in that regard.
“I've played on some pretty good teams with great locker rooms. This is one of the best, if not the best,” said right back Dan Gargan. “We've gone through a lot together. Obviously, we've had some pretty substantive success here, and there's also been a lot of things off the field that has brought us together as well.
“I think the guys genuinely enjoy spending time with one another, which is a big thing, and there's a lot of guys in similar points in their lives, and we can bond over that.”
Eleven players have had babies in the last year or are expecting, and that's made for an upbeat atmosphere.
“I don't know what the actual number is, but between the staff and the players, I think there's 24 kids under the age of 5. Which is a lot of kids,” said Gargan, whose wife gave birth to a daughter Wednesday. “Apparently, the family suite is basically a daycare during games.
“Witnessing that, it's special. Little kids, they bring joy and life to everybody.”
It's brought “real happiness” to the Galaxy, associate head coach Dave Sarachan notes, “with guys bringing in presents for one another and celebrating [births] and breaking eggs over guys' heads for birthdays. It's a real family.”
That's what midfielder Stefan Ishizaki, part of the baby crew, noticed when he arrived from Sweden in January.
“I kind of felt as soon as I got here that LA Galaxy is more like a family than a team,” he said. “I would say it's the same as [at IF Elfsborg] the last team I played for. We were a small club in Sweden and we were always fighting against the big clubs, and we always did really well, so it was more like a family there, too.
“It was different when I played in Italy [in 2004 for Genoa]. It was more you went to your job, you did your job, and then you went home to your family.”
Brazilian midfielder Marcelo Sarvas arrived from Costa Rica before the 2012 campaign.
“Everyone extend their arms and welcome me, and that made it easy to me to [be a part of] the team,” he said. “The new players that come, everyone always receive people with a smile and good intention. That's a very big thing with the Galaxy.”
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The bond was strengthened during the trials defender A.J. DeLaGarza and his wife, Megan, went through when their son, Luca, was born in late August with a congenital heart defect. He lived for just a week.
“What I went through, I think we bonded together,” DeLaGarza said. “Everyone supported me. I think it made us into a family, and that was fairly early in the season when we all found out [in May that Luca had a heart condition], so they were all invested in this as much as I was. We all went through it, the pain, and the support has been tremendous.”
Sarachan says that's been vital.
“Sometimes there's a false sense of 'Hey, I've got your back,' but when push comes to shove, there's guys that really don't,” he said. “In this case, we've got real guys who really have your back, and whether we had a tragedy or not, we had the right mix. That incident, was it a tipping point for all the other stuff? No, but it intensified how close we really are.”
