The long rumored partnership between MLS and USL PRO became official on Wednesday and now we know when the LA Galaxy Reserves will take part.
The USL PRO released their official schedule on Thursday that has the Galaxy Reserves playing a home-and-home series against the Fullerton-based club. LA will take on the Blues at Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Stadium on April 7 and then end the series on May 7 at The Home Depot Center complex.
Galaxy Technical Director Jovan Kirovski admitted that it is a great start for player development, but at the time LA has no plans to enter in an affiliation.
“It’s good for the development of your young kids and they get to play different competition, not just the same MLS competition all the time,” said Kirovski. “It’s the start to something, I know that other teams are forming partnerships and in the future, if it makes sense for us, we’d do the same, but it’s a great start.
“We’ve played the Blues in the past so we have some partnership with them,” Kirovski added later. “We’ve played them in preseason so it’ll be great competition for us. It’s just something different.”
One of the leaders of LA’s 2012 Western Division Reserve League champion side, Michael Stephens admits that the partnership will be a great asset to those players looking for minutes.
“As you saw last year with Open Cup when we played against the Carolina Railhawks, who are a lower division team, they were a better team than most of the reserve teams that we played. That will be a benefit to the guys who are playing. Also, the guys in [USL PRO] will have a lot to show to impress the MLS coaches so it’ll be a good thing for all the young players.”
