Aaron Long joined the Los Angeles Football Club as a free agent following the 2022 season, agreeing to a cross country move after six productive years with the New York Red Bulls.
While playing for the Red Bulls in 2019 after helping secure the team’s third Supporters’ Shield, Long experienced the atmosphere of an LAFC home match for the first time.
The physical center back and his former teammates fell 4-2 at the then Banc of California Stadium.
On the return flight back east, the now 31-year-old center back remembered saying, “Wow, that’s a tough place to play.”
On Saturday, Long will do what he can to remind his ex-teammates of that reality when they reunite at the rebranded BMO Stadium for their fourth Major League Soccer regular season meeting.
“You gotta treat it as just another game, right?” Long said. “Then after the game, you see old friends and talk.”
As fond as Long is about his time in New York, where he qualified for the playoffs each year and served as captain during his final season, his heart always remained in the L.A. area.
Raised in the high desert prior to four years of college soccer at UC Riverside, Long’s grandparents live in Monterey Park, 10 minutes from the LAFC training center; his sister is a half-hour away; his parents, an hour.
“It’s one of those things that when you’re here in L.A. it’s priceless for me,” Long said. “I know it’s not going to stay like that forever. Some players never get that opportunity to play in front of their family week in, week out. Just cherish it.”
LAFC hasn’t taken the defender’s insight about the Red Bulls and their vaunted press for granted.
Long did not have much tea to spill because New York’s style is well known and ingrained across the organization, but he shed light on small variances, such as where they are prone to suffer.
“He was very helpful for us,” Spanish fullback Sergi Palencia said. “He spoke about some private tactics. Red Bull, always, they have these triggers depending on where the ball is. We have to avoid these kinds of balls to not let them press us or put a lot of pressure on us.”
Head coach Steve Cherundolo asks players facing former clubs for tendencies, habits and behaviors, and Long also confirmed what the team scouted on tape.
Reiterating how dangerous NYRB (4-1-3, 15 points) is against the ball if an opponent overplays and lets them set their press, “one of the things that we don’t want to do is play right into that trap,” Long said.
LAFC (3-3-2, 11 points) must manage without midfielder Eduard Atuesta, who serves a one-game suspension for yellow card accumulation.
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Tied on points with Inter Miami for first place in the Eastern Conference, the 2024 version of the Red Bulls checks many of the boxes with which Long is familiar.
Under new German head coach Sandro Schwarz, they present some wrinkles as well. Forwards Dante Vanzeir and Lewis Morgan are off to hot starts alongside Swedish designated player Emil Forsberg, a veteran of the Red Bulls system in Leipzig.
“You can either completely try to control the ball, or try to beat them at their game,” said Cherundolo, who described RBNY as the best team he’s seen this year in terms of staying connected. “I think we’re a mix of that. We’ll try to do both.”
New York Red Bulls at LAFC
When: 7:39 p.m. Saturday
Where: BMO Stadium
TV/Radio: Apple TV – MLS Season Pass/710 AM, 980 AM, Sirius XM FC
