Before gathering in Seattle on March 4, 2018, no one calling themselves a Los Angeles Football Club supporter knew for certain what they were capable of.
“It was a group of people that would sit in parking lots and sing some songs, but we didn’t know how it would be and we were all impressed with how great we did it,” said Jimmy Lopez, a founding member and former president of the 3252, a non-profit independent supporters union that immediately became an integral piece of the LAFC story.
“I was on the front lines,” Lopez recalled. “It was just magic. A lot of us didn’t know what to expect because a lot of them, it was their first MLS match.”
Six years after Carlos Vela assisted Diego Rossi and folks like Lopez went wild celebrating a 1-0 debut win, more than 300 supporters are set to visit Seattle this Sunday to stand and jump for LAFC during a Western Conference semifinal showdown with the Sounders at Lumen Field.
Lopez will be there again as an LAFC employee tasked with, among other duties, serving as a liaison and a buffer between the club and the supporters, a role he accepted two years ago as a manager of Brand & Community.
“They wanted somebody from the culture to help navigate and make sure communication is always on the forefront,” he said. “It’s key to the relationship between 3252 and LAFC, so they asked me.”
At first, Lopez shot the offer down, but Rich Orosco, the club’s Chief Brand Officer and an early driving force in nurturing a from-the-ground-up supporter culture, persisted because the value in fully understanding what their supporters do and don’t want, why, and how best to give it to them was that important to the front office.
“It’s a dream I didn’t know I had,” Lopez said. “I’m just very proud of the relationship that formed from the beginning, before I took the position.”
Australian Monty Stevenson, a native of Sydney, also saw LAFC’s successful expansion debut in person. This weekend’s match marks a moment to recommit the energy and unity first expressed on that day.
“That’s the one thing a lot of us remember from that first first season,” said Stevenson, who will attend Sunday’s playoff match. “Remember that feeling and don’t ever let it go because that’s what it means to be a supporter. To go out and do those things is what we do it for, win or lose, just that togetherness and really rooting for a team.”
Recalling that trip to Seattle much the same way Lopez did, Stevenson described the addition of the respected supporter leader to LAFC’s front office as a “godsend.”
“It showed they trust enough to hire us on board to see things from their side,” Stevenson said. “I hate to put it that way. There’s the front office and then there’s us. But to hire our former president and one of his well-trusted leadership to go over there and handle things, it makes us trust them a little bit more now because we have one of us working for them.
“They know it takes all of us to make this what it is today. If they want to turn around and pay attention to their own things and turn a blind eye to supporters they know it won’t be what it is today.
“It’s very symbiotic. They definitely bounce things off of us.”
That includes thorny subjects like season ticket prices, said Stevenson, who has lived in the Los Angeles area for the last 15 years. He became an early LAFC adopter by signing up for email updates right after the team was announced in 2014. The following year he helped form one of the nine supporter groups, the Expo Originals, and began interacting with the LAFC front office.
The ability to give and get feedback was equally important inside the 3252, which at first consisted of former Chivas USA supporters split into a pair of groups – the Black Army, which included Lopez, and the District 9 Ultras – before a variety of new groups attracted supporters from around the city.
“They had their own ambitions and ideas in mind but we all kind of fell on the same page and realized this is bigger than all of us,” Stevenson said of the former Chivas USA fans. “Not one group can do this on their own. That was the biggest lesson we learned. There’s that saying, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ I think us going together has brought us to this point.”
MLS supporters groups are notorious for in-fighting, but six years since LAFC hit the field its supporter ranks are unified and growing, the members said. The 3252 does not publicly share their official membership numbers.
This season, coming off the club’s first MLS Cup title, there have literally never been more opportunities for the supporters to do what they do best.
Sunday is the 51st chance for the 3252 to show out for the organization in 2023, acting, if the players are to be believed, as a scoreboard-altering force at home and away.
Mario Mendez, a road warrior with the Black Army, has been a member for four years, joining the 3252 after he followed Mexico – and LAFC captain Carlos Vela – at the FIFA World Cup in Russia in 2018.
Mendez will join Lopez and Stevenson in the Pacific Northwest for his seventh road game of the season. He flew to Costa Rica for the opening round of the CONCACAF Champions League, and León, Mexico, for the first leg of that tournament’s championship final.
“It was pretty hard to choose,” the 34-year-old from Pico Rivera said, “obviously incorporating the money part and taking days off of work.
“I tend to wait for a schedule before I plan even a personal vacation because I want to make sure I don’t miss anything I’d like to go to.”
Throughout 2023, the players and coaching staff chimed up about the toll of the long slog, a record-breaking number of matches for an MLS team. The supporters certainly felt it, too.
From his seat in the LAFC front office, Lopez couldn’t help but be impressed by how many supporters have committed to travel this year.
“We basically played two full seasons in one season with all these tournaments we’ve had,” he said. “And at almost every match there’s members flying out.
“It’s expensive. We don’t help them out. They do it all on their own. Just to see how much they care about it, to go and travel for a match, is mind-boggling. I know quite a few members that have gone to more than 10 games and just love it. They use their vacation time and it’s their getaway.”
That energy, the same jolt that was felt for the first time in the spring of 2018, charged the 3252’s recent elections with a new slate of leaders.
“All the leaders weren’t there in the beginning, so that excites me because it’s the next generation,” Lopez said. “It’s the next wave of 3252 leadership that are going to bring fresh ideas and new energy and just keep it moving forward.”