Anyone who remembers Alexi Lalas from his playing days, he remembers his unruly shoulder-length red hair, thin headband and bushy goatee. They remember him traveling around Europe with little more than a backpack and a guitar.
He was the football version of Bill Waltonwithout the tie-dye T-shirts and penchant for listening to the Grateful Dead. Or at least it seemed that way.
But appearances can be deceiving.
“The aesthetic was definitely very hippie counterculture,” said Lalas, who turned out to be neither. “But let’s be honest, in the 90s, grunge stuff was in. So there was an element of fashion in relation to the times.
The goatee and long hair are long gone and Lalas, 54, now wears a suit to work. Yet while his appearance has changed, his politics have not, because although Lalas once looked like a hippie, he never voted like one.
If you saw or heard Lalas while he was a studio analyst for Fox, you know that his opinions on football are as bold and blunt as they are often unpopular. His political positions are even more provocative, intended to arouse anger and annoyance, but also to provoke negative reactions, sparking debate and discussion.
Alexi Lalas celebrates with fans after the United States defeated Colombia 2-1 in a World Cup group match at the Rose Bowl in 1994.
(Eric Draper/Associated Press)
Lalas and I met recently for a conversation over lunch at Tarzana Dinner Or John WoodWalton’s varsity coach, ate breakfast almost every day.
I never asked Lalas who he voted for and he never asked me, but a quick glance at social media clearly shows that our ballots were spoiled. Lalas has stood by Donald Trump through his racist speeches, his felony convictions, his promises to imprison generals and journalists and his tax policies that 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists say will destroy the American economy.
I wanted to know why.
It turns out that Lalas, a physical and battered center back who has been booked almost three times as often as he has scored during a nine-year professional career, views politics the same way he does considers football: as a contact sport in which you fight until the end. end, then shake hands afterwards.
Lalas spent a defining part of his childhood in Greece, where his father, Demetrius, a professor of mechanical engineering and meteorology, was director of the national observatory in Athens. Lalas remembers walking past a tavern with his mother, the award-winning poet Anne Harding Woodworth (whose latest work “Gender: Two Novellas in Verse” addresses gender fluidity in a decidedly anti-MAGA way), and being asked why all the old Greeks were shouting and shouting at each other.
“They are not angry. They talk about politics,” she replied.
“And when the screaming was over, they started drinking Ouzo and playing backgammon again,” Lalas added. “This type of debate, from a perspective of respect and civility, is something that I’ve always kind of envisioned and been drawn to. When it comes to politics, I like it. It’s interesting to me. It’s fun for me.
There’s often not a lot of respect and civility among the messages coming in on his social media feeds. Football fans are mostly liberal and cosmopolitan in the United States, which is why Lalas’s conservatism has led to him being called a vile human, a fascist, and a stupid far-right puppet. And these are the comments that we can print here.
His TV persona, he said, is part shock jock; it doesn’t really care if you love it or hate it as long as you don’t change the channel. His online political comments can often feel the same way.
However, Lalas, who appears thoughtful and contemplative, insists that he is not trolling. Well, not completely.
“X is not representative of the world,” he said, referring to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “I enjoy the interaction, I enjoy the fight. But I also recognize that this is a very, very small part of the world.
“People act, behave, say things in a very different way when they are face to face. It’s much more real and authentic when this is done.
Lalas’s politics, he says, are not based on labels like Democrat or Republican but on common sense — which others would say is the antithesis of the MAGA movement, which sees censorship as freedom, hatred as love and division as unity.
“I look at things and if it makes sense to me, I’m for it,” Lalas said. “I know it when I feel it. I know what is right, what I believe. And that’s what I do.
These views were formed, in part, by a soccer career in which he played two years in Italy and another part in Ecuador while representing the United States in more than 16 countries with the national team. At home, he won four major trophies in three seasons with the Galaxy, then served as club president when the team signed David Beckham.
His political views are still evolving, and as part of this evolution, Lalas attended the party’s two national congresses this summer.
“My travels and the things I’ve seen have certainly given me perspective and finally allowed me to appreciate what we have here and be proud of it,” he said during the luncheon. the most American, a half-eaten hamburger. and fries. “I love traveling and I’m so lucky that playing ball has allowed me to see so much of the world.
“However, I can tell you that it’s always my favorite moment when that plane hits the tarmac at home. There is no such thing. It’s the greatest country in the world, it deserves to be defended and it deserves to be proud.”
Ultimately, politics shares more similarities with football than differences, Lalas believes.
“There’s obviously tribalism involved, there’s the performative aspect,” he said. “But we also have to recognize that the consequences and ramifications are much more serious when it comes to politics.”
Perhaps that’s why World Cups end with a handshake between the two teams, one offering congratulations and the other condolences, which is not the case with elections. However, the line between sport and politics is becoming increasingly fine. This fall, a former baseball player, Steve Garvey, ran for the California Senate, while Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker and current House member, ran for the Texas Senate.
Is this also Lalas’ future?
“Not anytime soon,” he said. “But I never say never.”
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