Home Isn't Always Where The Heart Is: The Journey Of Dan Kennedy With Chivas USA

For Dan Kennedy, the odd thing about his homecoming was how it never quite felt like home. When the goalkeeper was signed by Chivas USA in 2008, the club was one of the two Major League Soccer franchises in Los Angeles. Kennedy was a local talent raised in Orange County who had later starred at UC Santa Barbara. Despite his strong connections to the area, Kennedy often found himself feeling more comfortable playing on the road.

By the time Chivas folded six seasons later, no one had appeared in more games or played more minutes in the club's history than Kennedy. Yet, throughout that period, he expressed that the experience of playing at home didn't resonate with him as it should have. The Galaxy, the original tenant in the Carson stadium shared by both teams, had a much more advantageous setup, with two training fields compared to Chivas's one. This discrepancy in resources contributed to a feeling of being second fiddle within his own home turf.

“When they weren’t having success, I would say it was certainly less bothersome,” Kennedy reflected. “But when they were rolling and winning championships, we were trying to figure out what this club was even going to be -- if it was going to continue in Major League Soccer. And it was so evident that we just didn’t have a home, and didn’t have identity, and we were just second fiddle.” This sentiment encapsulates the struggles faced by teams that share their facilities, a scenario often referred to as groundsharing, which can lead to feelings of being overlooked and undervalued.