Union original Jordan Harvey is excited for two of his former teams to meet in MLS Cup

LOS ANGELES — Jordan Harvey is very much a southern Californian, by birth and by choice. He grew up in Orange County, went to college at UCLA, and came home to play the last four seasons of his 16-year career with Los Angeles FC. This year, he was part of the team’s local TV broadcast crew and does a few other things for the team.

But a piece of him still belongs to a year and a half of his life that started a dozen seasons ago, when an expansion team thousands of miles away brought him to the other side of the country.

Longtime Union fans still remember Harvey fondly as one of the team’s original players — and the best left back in team history until Kai Wagner arrived. And Harvey still remembers his time with the Union with equal fondness, on and off the field.

So it was natural to call him up as two of his former teams, the Union and LAFC, prepare to meet in Saturday’s MLS Cup final at Banc of California Stadium (4 p.m., Fox29, Univision 65, and TUDN).

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It turned out Harvey’s phone already had been busy.

“I was texting Sheanon [Williams] yesterday,” he said, also name-dropping former teammates Chris Seitz, Danny Califf, Justin Mapp, and Stefani Miglioranzi. “I’ll be texting these guys to see if they’re headed out, offering them a place to stay if they want.”

Harvey had been planning for a title game in Philadelphia, where he met his now-wife at El Vez in Center City. He still has a friend who bartends at Xfinity! Live and offered him a ticket to the game if he could make it.

“If it were in Philadelphia, I would probably try to find a way for my wife to come out and [for] us to do a weekend there,” Harvey said. “I think that would have been fun.”

The Union now are a different team than they were back then, on and off the field. But there’s one thing Harvey sees that’s the same as it was when he was in town.

“Everything’s been changed since I was there. … The fans have not,” he said. “Because of the fans, you knew there was always going to be fight in the team. The Sons of Ben, listen, I think they are up there with some of the best supporters in the league — I still put LAFC on top, but the Sons of Ben, from the beginning, they’ve done it the right way.”

And of the team, he said: “The way they’re doing it now is just so efficient and so professional and so together. I’ve got so much respect for the way [the] Philadelphia Union is running their whole club from top to bottom.”

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It was natural to ask Harvey about Wagner, and he had plenty to say.

“When you give somebody like Kai Wagner — a very good player with all the tools — a system and a way of doing things that he can become familiar with comfortable with and execute, you’re going to see success,” Harvey said. “A lot of the [Union’s] possessions come from his ability to hit, like, good long balls forward to willing runners. And they need to be cultured, well-placed — it’s not just lumping a ball forward. It’s doing it in the right fashion in the right places, that people can get on the end of it.”

As for LAFC, Harvey said the home team is “playing our best football right now.” He admitted he said that as a team employee, but it’s hard to argue about against LAFC’s playoffs so far: a last-minute 3-2 win over the crosstown rival Galaxy, then a 3-0 thumping of Austin FC in the conference final.

“I think [the] L.A. Galaxy game was very emotional, and this team showed really a strong mentality,” he said. “And then this last game against Austin, I think LAFC completely dominated in all facets of the game. I know Steve [Cherundolo, the manager] said it as well: It was one of the best performances of the year for them.”

Harvey has had an eye on Denis Bouanga, a forward who was one of four big LAFC signings this summer. Bouanga arrived from French fallen giant Saint-Étienne for $5 million and has just three goals in nine games for his new team. But two of them came against the Galaxy, and the other clinched the Supporters’ Shield on Oct. 2 in Portland.

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“The signing of Bouanga has been massive — this guy is such a good player,” Harvey said. “Much like Philadelphia has their identity, has their system, LAFC has the same. … It takes time to learn a system, to really find the ways of how your attributes complement that system, and vice versa.”

The person in charge of implementing that system is Cherundolo, a U.S. men’s national team legend who’s now LAFC’s manager. Last year, he ran the club’s USL affiliate in Las Vegas. This year, he took the first team to the title game while integrating Bouanga, Gareth Bale, Giorgio Chiellini, and Cristian Tello to a squad that already had Carlos Vela.

“He’s personable,” Harvey said of Cherundolo. “He can speak to all these players in a way that’s honest, that’s constructive, that at times is critical, but that all players appreciate.”

He described Chiellini, a legend of Juventus and Italy, as “one of the most approachable, personable people that I’ve ever met in the sport — takes time for anyone and everyone.”

And he said Bale, a superstar of Wales’ national team who played for Real Madrid and Tottenham, doesn’t come off that way in the locker room.

“He doesn’t require the superstardom,” Harvey said. “You think of him as like, up there with Cristiano Ronaldo. When you meet him, he’s a very personable guy.”

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