Los Angeles is not one place.
That is the point.
It is Boyle Heights and Beverly Hills. Compton and Pasadena. Inglewood and Long Beach. Koreatown and East L.A. The Valley and the Harbor. Downtown towers and football pitches underneath the flight path.
Millions of people arrived here from somewhere else.
Mexico. Central America. South America. Europe. Africa. Asia. Every corner of the world.
They brought food.
Music.
Language.
Family.
And they brought football.
That is what CITY OF DREAMS is about.
I wrote the song for the Los Angeles Aztecs, but the Aztecs are not supposed to be a club that simply happens to play in Los Angeles.
The people of Los Angeles form the club.
The kid playing until the streetlights come on.
The Mexican grandfather who has watched football for sixty years.
The mother driving across L.A. on Saturday morning with boots in the back of the car.
The Sunday-league player working all week and chasing a ball at the weekend.
The immigrant who learned English but never needed translating when somebody rolled a football towards him.
The old supporter who remembers George Best and Johan Cruyff.
And the child who has never heard their names yet.
They all belong.
Because football has always had its own language.
A ball rolls across a park in Los Angeles and nobody needs to ask where you were born.
Can you play?
That will do.
This city already has the players.
It already has the supporters.
It already has the culture.
You can hear Spanish beside the pitch. Music coming from a car. Boots hitting concrete. Parents shouting instructions nobody asked for. Kids using backpacks for goalposts.
That is Los Angeles football.
Not something waiting to be invented by a corporation.
It is already here.
The job of the Aztecs is to give it a badge.
That is why CITY OF DREAMS moves across Los Angeles.
From the Pacific to the Valley.
From East L.A. to Inglewood.
From Compton to Pasadena.
From Long Beach back towards Downtown.
Different streets.
Different languages.
Different incomes.
Different lives.
But when the ball starts moving, those differences become smaller.
The original Los Angeles Aztecs once brought some of the greatest players on earth to this city.
The next chapter should be different.
This time, we should look at the greatness that is already here.
Because the Los Angeles Aztecs should never belong to one neighbourhood, one nationality, one investor or one type of supporter.
They belong to the people who love the game.
That is the dream.
Not eleven footballers wearing the same shirt.
Millions of different people seeing a little bit of themselves in it.
Different people.
Different cities.
Different stories.
One game.
One badge.
One Los Angeles.
CITY OF DREAMS
The people don’t just support the Los Angeles Aztecs.
The people are the Los Angeles Aztecs.
