Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the L.A. Times soccer newsletter. I’m Kevin Baxter, The Times’ soccer writer, and today we start with an event that was both sad and uplifting at the same time.
Friday’s memorial service for Sigi Schmid, the Hall of Fame coach who died on Christmas Day, stirred multiple emotions. It’s difficult, after all, to say goodbye to anyone, especially when they leave at just 65. But the long evening of tributes and remembrances at American Martyrs Catholic Church in Manhattan Beach — some of which brought laughs; others, tears — was as much a celebration of Schmid’s life as it was a mourning of his death.