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Galaxy's Sacha Kljestan, Charlotte's Chris Hegardt provide feel-good moment
By Doug McIntyre
FOX Sports Soccer Writer
Editor's note: MLS Footnotes takes you inside the major talking points around the league and across American soccer.
Believe it or not, the best story of the young MLS season isn’t the league-record 74,479 fans that Charlotte FC drew for its inaugural home match — the second-highest attended soccer game in the world in 2022.
The best story is what happened before, during and after the historic contest between Charlotte rookie Chris Hegardt and LA Galaxy veteran Sacha Kljestan. Kljestan was waiting for a friend in the lobby of the Galaxy’s hotel in Charlotte when he was approached by Hegardt’s mom.
She told him that when Chris was a 7-year-old soccer fanatic battling pediatric liver cancer, Kljestan, then a U.S. Men’s National Team regular, visited him in the hospital. Then she explained that Chris recovered from his illness, became a professional soccer player and was to face Kljestan later that night.
"I was mind-blown," Kljestan told FOX Sports this week. "I hadn’t heard about Chris since I visited him. I’d never been able to get an update. It was just one of those things where you’re just like, ‘No way.’
"It’s such an amazing thing."
Even more amazing? Saturday’s encounter was random. Hegardt’s family was in the nation’s capital the previous week to see Chris make his MLS debut — 13 years to the day after he was declared cancer-free — against D.C. United. Rather than returning to their native San Diego between games, they traveled directly to Charlotte.
They had no idea the Galaxy were booked into their hotel later in the week or that they’d run into Kljestan. "My mom was just like, ‘He was standing right next to me. I had to say something,'" Hegardt said.
"She had photos [of the hospital visit] on her phone that she showed me," Kljestan said. "And I see how big Chris was smiling. I just remember the kid still had a big smile on his face despite the circumstances."
"He was excited to meet me and my wife," Kljestan added. "That part of it was just really touching."
Both Hegardt and Kljestan came on as substitutes in Saturday’s match, won by the Galaxy 1-0 on Efraín Álvarez’s second-half golazo.
Afterward, the pair exchanged jerseys and spoke for the first time in more than a decade. "I just told him thank you again for visiting me when I was a kid. It helped me so much and kind of gave me motivation to get where I am today," Hegardt said. "It was surreal."
"I’m trying to put myself in Chris’ parents shoes now that I have kids," Kljestan said. "Never in a million years that day would his parents have thought that we’d be on the same field one day, let alone in front of 75,000 people."
LA Galaxy's Sacha Kljestan and Charlotte FC's Chris Hegardt exchange jerseys 12 years after hospital visit
FOOTNOTES
1. Galaxy start perfect
After making the playoffs just once in the past five seasons, the Galaxy are one of just four teams to start the new campaign 2-0. The others are Austin, D.C. and the New York Red Bulls. Only the Red Bulls qualified for the 2021 postseason.
Time will tell if Greg Vanney’s team is for real. But as Vanney said last week, consistency is something the club is striving for. "If we stick to the process and continue to grow, we’ll give ourselves the best chance over the course of the season to make the playoffs," he said. "If we do, I think we have a real chance to make some noise."
The biggest test yet for the Galaxy awaits Saturday, when they’ll be in Seattle to face the perennial Cup contender Sounders (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX/FOX Deportes/FOX Sports app).
2. Southeast takes center stage again
Charlotte will again be involved in the best-attended match of the weekend at Atlanta United on Sunday (4:30 p.m. ET, FS1 FOX Deportes/FOX Sports app). Not did Atlanta, which took MLS by storm when they debuted as an expansion side in 2017, provide the blueprint for Charlotte’s entry but also the team is Charlotte's closest geographic rival. (Nashville is about five miles farther from Charlotte than Georgia’s capital.)
Atlanta won its season opener before being routed 3-0 in Colorado in Week 2. Five Stripes center back Miles Robinson is suspended for Sunday’s contest after picking up a second yellow card late against the Rapids.
3. Don’t sound the alarm
While Cup co-favorites Seattle are 0-2, the Sounders’ start is misleading.
Coach Brian Schmetzer is without injured stars Nicolás Lodeiro and Raúl Ruidíaz, and with the club’s CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal first leg against Mexico’s Leon set for Tuesday, three other regulars — forward Jordan Morris, defender Nouhou Tolo and midfielder Cristian Roldan — were subs.
The decision paid off against Leon, with the Sounders winning 3-0 on two goals by Fredy Montero and another by Morris in stoppage time. The decisive second leg of the total-goals series is south of the border next Thursday.
4. Is this finally MLS’ year?
MLS teams’ record in the Champions League speaks for itself. A Liga MX squad has won every edition of the tournament since it went to the current format in 2008, and only four American or Canadian sides (RSL in 2011, Montreal in 2015, Toronto in 2018 and LAFC two years ago) have even reached the final.
This year, though, MLS is off to a great start. Seattle dropped Leon, New England trounced Pumas at snowy Foxborough, and Montreal, which eliminated Mexico’s Santos Laguna in the round of 16, limited Cruz Azul to a single goal in Wednesday’s opener, with the return match March 16 at Stade Olympique.
But don’t start popping champagne just yet. MLS teams remain at a huge competitive disadvantage compared to Mexican clubs that aren’t bound by a salary cap and other roster restrictions. Maybe an MLS team can overcome those obstacles this year. History reminds us that isn’t likely.
5. A tale of two competitions
Like Seattle, CF Montreal are 0-2. But the bleu-blanc-noir always punch above their weight in CONCACAF. It’s in their DNA: Back in 2009, a 2-0 win by the then second-tier Montreal Impact over Santos Laguna in front of more than 50,000 partisan fans at the "Big O" was the catalyst that propelled Canada’s second-largest city into MLS three years later.
Three years after that, Montreal were 45 minutes from the title and an MLS team’s first trip to FIFA’s Club World Cup. Then Club America came storming back in the second half to claim the trophy. Can Montreal go deep again this year?
6. Revs’ evolution
For longtime MLS observers, there’s no better team to watch than New England. That isn’t just because the Revs have become one of the league’s best under Bruce Arena — who became the all-time MLS wins leader last weekend despite spending nine years in the middle of his career coaching the U.S. men. It's also because their 2022 roster is full of all-time characters, from Jozy Altidore to Omar Gonzalez to Tommy McNamara.
7. Arena on USMNT
This didn’t make it into the first Footnotes of 2022, but with the final set of World Cup qualifiers for the U.S. just two weeks away, here are the 70-year-old’s thoughts on the national team. Arena was at the helm when the Americans reached the quarterfinals in 2002 and, of course, when they failed to make it four years ago.
"This is a completely different situation" than last time, Arena said. "CONCACAF isn’t strong right now. I don’t believe Mexico is strong. Obviously, Canada has the best team at the moment, and the U.S. is probably the most talented. Panama is good as well. So to me, the top four teams are pretty obvious. I don’t think the others can do anything to impact that order changing.
"If fans want to be nervous, that’s fine," he continued. "But I think the U.S. is going to qualify."
One of the most prominent soccer journalists in North America, Doug McIntyre has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams in more than a dozen countries, including multiple FIFA World Cups. Before joining FOX Sports, the New York City native was a staff writer for Yahoo Sports and ESPN. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.
