CARSON, Calif. – When the LA Galaxy face off against Seattle Sounders FC on Sunday evening not only will the league’s two best teams take the field with the Supporters’ Shield on the line, but two of the greatest coaches in MLS history will match wits.
LA Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena and Seattle boss Sigi Schmid have long dominated MLS as their clubs account for six of the 19 MLS Cup winners.
Opponents since Arena led the University of Virginia and Schmid coached at UCLA (Arena won the only college meeting 3-0 in 1988), Arena holds an 11-7-5 record in 23 meetings against Schmid in all competitions.
While Arena has enjoyed success against Schmid, the Galaxy head coach has long been impressed with his Seattle counterpart’s teams.
“They’re always prepared,” said Arena. “They’re always good solid teams and they play hard.”
Landon Donovan has also been a fan of Schmid’s coaching from afar.
Although Donovan never played for Schmid at the club or international level, the Galaxy attacker has enjoyed a measure of success against his teams with four goals and two assists all-time.
“Schmid’s record speaks for itself. He’s unquestionably one of the two or three best coaches to ever coach in this league,” said Donovan. “I’ve always respected him from the outside and while I don’t know what he’s like on the inside, everyone who has been around him has great things to say.”
Galaxy left back Robbie Rogers is quite familiar with both coaches having spent the first two years of his MLS career under Schmid’s stewardship at Columbus Crew while serving as a key member of the Crew side that won MLS Cup in 2008 at StubHub Center.
While Schmid gave Rogers’ his start in MLS, Arena has been responsible for his recent career renaissance as a left back. Following a disappointing first season with the Galaxy as a wide midfielder, Arena opted to transition him to left back where Rogers has been one of LA’s most valuable assets during the team’s impressive 2014 campaign.
Although both men have aided his career in different ways, Rogers says that the two coaches are incredibly similar.
“Bruce and Sigi are different, but they both build a locker room with guys with great character and eager, willing, and motivated to buy into a system,” Rogers told LAGalaxy.com. “They all know what their jobs are and what the job of the team is. That camaraderie and that chemistry in the locker room [between their teams] is very similar.
“Sigi is a great coach and an experienced one and like Bruce, he’s good a finding young talent and developing,” he added. “Also like Bruce, he’s good at not just finding people who have talent but also will work in the system. Those similarities are a big part about why they’re successful. “
But it isn’t just the types of players that they bring in that offers similarities, Rogers believes that even the manner in which they position their sides on the field is analogous.
“Their playing styles are very similar, Sigi used to like to play with wingers which historically has also been a trait of Bruce’s teams,” Rogers said. “However if you look at the way that we’re both playing, we both play with attacking fullbacks with [DeAndre] Yedlin on their team and guys like myself, A.J. [DeLaGarza], Dan [Gargan]or James [Riley] on our side.
“Those are huge similarities.”
Adam Serrano is the LA Galaxy Insider. Read his blog at LAGalaxy.com/Insider and contact him at LAGalaxyInsider@Gmail.com.
