The City of Blue - The Rebirth of The Aztecs

When I was a kid I always had dreams of coming to this place, from the posters I saw of it when I was a kid I knew that is the place where I wanted to live when I grew up.

When I was a young boy, I was living in run down town in Rio as my dad worked there. I hated every second there as I couldn't speak the language but then one day, I saw some kids playing football and it completely changed my life.

I fell in love with this game straight away despite not knowing anything about it previously. I decided I wanted to make football my life, my passion, and I told myself I was going to be a professional footballer. I spent everyday playing football with the same kids in some rundown part of Rio. I was completely in awe of their talents, they did tricks with the ball that when I attempted I just fell on my face.

However, 2 years after arriving in Rio, my life was completely changed when my dad was forced to move to another job. This time in Abu Dhabi. I absolutely hated it, is was so hot I could hardly go outside. But I still had that poster, that poster of a city that I didn't even know if it existed. That poster is what I had dreams about.

What was in the poster? It was the most beautiful picture of a beach I had ever seen, on the right hand side of it, it had a long pier with a Ferris wheel on it and other types of rides. The beach was absolutely packed with people and it just looked like such a happy place. But where was this city? I don't know.....

I called it the City of Blue, due to it's blue skies and blue sea. Everything about it looked beautiful and so perfect... More perfect than where I was living at the time, in a sand filled sweat box.

I spent the rest of my childhood in Abu Dhabi, still fascinated with football. I followed a local team named Al-Jazira there. The football wasn't great but it was good enough to still inspire me to pursue a career in football.

When I turned 18, I applied at the University of Abu Dhabi to forge my career in football and start my qualifications in football management... It was easy to apply because I had been living there so long I could register as a Emrati national.

But this was it, this was my chance of finding the city I had always had dreams about, The City of Blue....

I was enjoying my new course at the Univeristy of Abu Dhabi. There were a few other English people on my course as well which made life much easier as it meant I finally had someone to talk to other than my parents, I hadn't had friends since the days when I discovered football in Rio.

They all had aspirations of becoming managers of football clubs, some wanted to join local teams that they had followed since moving here, and some wanted to just manage anywhere, but not me, I was still focused on the City of Blue, I was desperate to find out where that city was.

After 6 months, I managed to secure my National C license, and to get some experience working at a football club, a local side named Al-Wahda. They were nothing special, just an average mid-table team in UAE Gulf League.

I was enjoying my time there, I got to sit in the technical area and learn what the manager does and the manager at the time, Tite, gave me tips on how what a good manager does. At the time I didn't know who Tite was, but the tips he gave me were invaluable and I took them on board and applied them to my course. In the next year I had managed to work myself up to a Continental C License. Unfortunately Tite was not manager of Al-Wahda anymore, instead it was a man named Josef Hickersberger. I thanked Josef for my time at Al-Wahda and told him I was leaving the club to begin my own quest as a manager.

Where would my first stop be? Well the City of Blue of course, but first I had to find out where that was.

I kept thinking to myself, how will I find the City in Blue, it's not like I could just ask around and hope that somebody would know what I was talking about...

I went to my friend Matt, from my course, I told him about the City in Blue and he said it sounds wonderful, but we currently live in 'paradise'... Yeah as if a city where is always 40 degrees and above and it never rains is a paradise. I had always hated my time here in Abu Dhabi, it was too hot for me. Sure it was nice spending every day at the beach playing beach football with my friends, but we would all be too tired after about half an hour due to the insane heat.

As Matt carried on explaining about how Abu Dhabi was some sort of 'paradise' I zoned out and kept thinking about if I would ever find this city I dreamt about my whole life. After he had finished explaining, he asked me if I wanted to go play beach football with the lads, I reluctantly agreed. However I didn't realize that on this trip, something magical would happen...

Today, I find myself standing in that very spot of that poster I had as a kid, I had never smiled so much in my life while standing in that spot, everything about it was perfect, the weather, the people and the general buzz of the city. All around, all I could smell were people's chips covered in vinegar. I couldn't believe it, I was finally here, I was finally at the City of Blue. How did I get here? Well...

After I reluctantly accepted to go play beach football with the lads, we found another group of English Tourists at the beach, we asked them if they wanted to join in, so they did. The Weather was a lot cooler today and we played for hours until the tourists said they wanted to go shopping. We went with them to show the around Abu Dhabi and point out some of the good places to go.

After about a 15 minute walk we came to the Yas Mall and walking through it, I noticed a small gift shop with postcards all in the window, I told the others I'd catch them in a bit and went and had a look at the gift shop, there was a small old lady working in the shop, but she didn't speak much English I could tell as when I said Hello she replied in Arabic. The shop had postcards from nearly every city on earth, London, Lisbon, Moscow, Tokyo, you name it, it was there. I must have spent 15 minutes searching... searching for the City of Blue.

I was about to give up looking for it, but then I moved a Buenos Aires postcard and there it was... The City of Blue... I recognized the pier and the beach straight away, it was exactly like my poster except this type it had the name of the city on it, now I could finally stop calling it the City of Blue...

Very good start mate, this should be an interesting one to follow!

There is was, the picture I had always looked at when I was a kid, this small gift shop in the Yas Mall in Abu Dhabi had the exact same picture..... So where was the City of Blue? Well, it was a place called Los Angeles.

I had never really heard of Los Angeles which is quite shocking considering I'm 21 years old, but being a kid taught in countries where you don't really speak the languages, it's kind of hard to learn anything really. I knew the City of Blue was Los Angeles, but I didn't even know where Los Angeles was.

I caught of with the guys later and told them I had found out what the City of Blue was. I had never shown them the picture I had before, but I showed it to them and said 'It's Los Angeles'. I asked them if they knew where Los Angeles was, they said 'Yeah, that's over in America bro'.

I was beaming with excitement, I was finally going to go to that place I had been dreaming about when I was kid, but then one thought hit me, I know nothing about the football over there? Do they even have football teams? But my heart was set, I was heading to Los Angeles.

24 hours later, I'm standing in the very spot of that poster, I knew nothing about Los Angeles, nothing at all.

All I had with me was my luggage, and the equivalent of $15,000 which my dad had given me before I left. He was a wealthy man, but that was to be expected when you're working in Abu Dhabi. I thought this would be enough to keep me going for a while before I landed my first job in football.

The people of Los Angeles were talking about this sport called Soccer... I had no idea what Soccer was until I plucked up the courage to ask one of them 'What is this Soccer sport everyone's talking about?' They replied 'It's like what you brits call football'.

They were talking about a team named LA Galaxy and how they were in the news for all the wrong reasons, I wanted to find out why they were though...

I took a cab down to the Los Angeles Public Library in my attempt to find out what was happening with this club, LA Galaxy.

I found a newspaper named the Los Angeles Times, and I flicked over to the sports section. This club named LA Galaxy had been found out to be majorly corrupt, and fixing the The North American Champions League Final they had won in 2008 was fixed so that they would win.

They were under intense media fire because of it, and were due to be stripped of their MLS status with tme saying that 'What LA Galaxy have done is a disgrace, and that is the kind of behavior we don't want in the MLS, they will no longer be a part of this league come next season'.

I am liking the diary format of this story pal will keep an eye out for updates

At the library, I met a businessman with the name of Andrew Beal, who was looking to form an MLS franchise.

I saw him looking at the same news as me and he was talking on the phone to someone, I couldn't here much but I heard him say, 'this is the perfect time to bring back the Aztecs'

I went over to him and said I heard you're looking to form a new MLS franchise with him looking at me blankly he hung up his phone. He invited to me to sit down and said Yes, I am, why does that interest you? I said well, I'm moved here to achieve my dream of becoming a football manager, I would love to be the manager of your team should you decide to form it. His face lit up, I think he suddenly realized this dream of his to create a football team was suddenly becoming true. He asked me if I had any qualifications? I replied yes I have a Continental C License which he said was adequate, but he would fund the rest of my qualifications.

He said he would love me to be the manager of his new club, he would get in touch in the future with the contract details and he looks forward to working with me.

Me and Andrew, contacted the MLS directors the next day, saying that we wanted to create an MLS franchise to play next season. He stated that we have the funding to get everything set up by January 2015.

He had a clear idea of what he wanted from this club, He wanted this club to be the best in America within the next 5 years, and he was willing to invest as much money as the club needed to make that happen.

Here's a bit of a background on the chairman, Andrew Beal - Andrew Beal is worth an astonishing $7.6 billion dollars and has made his name as the owner of Beal Banks, although they are based in Texas, he himself lives in Santa Monica, California. This is where he wanted to base his club.

A few days later, we had a reply from the MLS directors, saying they like the idea of our club and were looking for a club in the Los Angeles Area to replace the outgoing LA Galaxy. They formally accepted our idea, and said we will be playing in the 2015 MLS season.

We had 6 months to get everything ready and by everything, we didn't even have a badge.

But one thing we did have was a name - Ladies and Gentlemen, This is the revival of The Los Angeles Aztecs.

So who were the LA Aztecs?

The LA Aztecs were a team from the USA who were formed in 1973, they were often compared to the New York Cosmos in terms of success. They were famous for having players such as Johan Cruyff and George Best. However due to financial troubles, they were dissolved in 1981.

Our club would have no connection to the former club despite the name, we wanted to be our own identity, me and Andrew had a clear idea of what we wanted to do with this club, we simply wanted to turn this into one of the biggest clubs in the world.

We knew we wouldn't be very good in the first couple of seasons as we established the club, but me and Andrew were very excited, we had the chance to build a club from head to toe.

First things first, it was time to create a badge to give our team an identity.

After 2 weeks of constantly designing badges and thinking of new ideas for a badge, we, the LA Aztecs have finally given our club an identity, the LA Aztecs now face a face to go along with their name.

The badge is quite simple, and sticks to the main colors of the old Aztecs in Orange and Blue. However the badge is a lot different to the old old Aztecs badge, as we want to be our own club and not to be associated with them.

So I am proud to present, the new identity of the LA Aztecs, here's the new badge:



We recognize there is still a lot to do before the incoming 2015 MLS season but we are happy with how quickly the club is progressing and we have firm belief we will turn this into a top club.

Now we have got an identity, we had 5 and a half months to get a squad together, a difficult challenge for a manager with no experience and a chairman with no footballing background. Nevertheless, we were confident we could get a decent squad together, blending in youth and experience.

Me and Andrew wanted to focus on using domestic players for the first season, that understand the league. We figured the best way we could do this was go around to all the local academies in the state of Los Angeles. We may branch out on purchasing some top quality talent should the right player come available, but for now we were focusing on local talent.

There were so many soccer academies in Los Angeles, it was incredible, me and Andrew were feeling very confident we could get a squad together with plenty of time to get them to gel.

We'll update you on the squad in the next update.

Interesting to see how you do with a blank slate to wrk with