Galaxy’s new management allows them to host MLS Cup with one more victory

When LAFC entered Major League Soccer in 2018, it was a loud, brash upstart ready to challenge the hegemony of its Southern California neighbor the Galaxy.

The Galaxy were the class of the league, an original and five-time champion franchise that had made the playoffs eight times in the previous nine seasons, winning three MLS Cups and two Supporters’ Shields. Its owner, septuagenarian Philip Anschutz, co-founded the league and saved it from bankruptcy years later.

LAFC was an expansion team with a Hollywood-led ownership group, many of whom had no soccer experience. By taking on the Galaxy, he sparked a clash between the establishment and the newcomers, the old money against the new. And in the first six seasons, the new blood won, with LAFC rewriting the template for MLS success by capturing two Supporters’ Shields, reaching the CONCACAF Champions League final twice and winning all four best trophies in the league, including an MLS Cup.

LAFC has won more games, accumulated more points and scored more goals than any team while the Galaxy have lost more games than they have won, conceded more often than they have scored and missed the playoffs twice as often as he made them. The baton had clearly been passed.

This weekend, however, LAFC’s season ended Saturday before the Western Conference finals for the first time in three years, while the Galaxy devastated Minnesota United on Sunday in what was arguably the playoff performance most dominant playoff run in franchise history.

“The Galaxy,” coach Greg Vanney said, “are back.”

Learn more:Galaxy keeps scoring to defeat Minnesota and reach Western Conference Finals

Are they ever. The team won 19 games and scored 69 times during the regular season, both totals matching franchise records in the modern era. It was a tiebreaker to finish atop the Western Conference standings for the first time in 13 years. The Galaxy really found their groove in the postseason, scoring 15 times in two one-sided victories over Colorado in the first round, then dismantling Minnesota 6-2 on Sunday in the conference semifinals.

That sends them to Saturday’s conference final against the Seattle Sounders at Dignity Health Sports Park. If they win this one, they will host their first MLS Cup final in a decade in a stadium where they are undefeated in 19 games this season.

The Galaxy have yet to trail in the playoffs with Riqui Puig and Dejan Joveljic scoring four goals each and combining for five assists while Gabriel Pec and Joseph Paintsil, who both scored twice on Sunday, each scored three goals each. If the Galaxy are not the best team in MLS, they are certainly the best of the four teams still in the running.

Yet just a season ago, major Galaxy fan groups were boycotting home games, angry at the team’s lack of direction and the dysfunction of its front office. The boycott was lifted when longtime team president Chris Klein was fired that spring, but the funk continued with the Galaxy winning only eight games, tying the franchise’s lowest for a season. full season.

The foundations of this year’s success were built on the rubble of last year’s failures. Will Kuntz, who helped turn LAFC into a winner as senior vice president of player personnel, joined the Galaxy seven weeks before Klein’s firing and immediately began rebuilding the roster. Nine of the 11 players who started against Minnesota, including Pec and Paintsil, have joined the Galaxy in the past 16 months.

“I’d love to say it was all me (but) it was a confluence of events,” said Kuntz, who has added 20 players since taking over as the Galaxy’s player. “It was obvious that we had to change. This club has a very old tradition and we were certainly very far from it.

“The thinking within the club had become obsolete.”

This idea has always been that the Galaxy needed big-name players, which is why the team signed a succession of them, from David Beckham and Robbie Keane to Steven Gerrard and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Some succeeded, others did not. For Kuntz, it was a model that no longer worked.

Learn more:LAFC’s MLS Cup hopes shattered by loss to Seattle: ‘We fought’

“It’s almost like it’s become an obligation, almost like an albatross sometimes. People felt like they had to create a huge star with name recognition because he’s a Galaxy player, right? » he said.

“The league has changed. If we win, everything will work out. Let’s try to find the players who we think will give us the best chance.

So, Kuntz spent more than $19 million in transfer fees and another $6.4 million in 2024 salaries on Pec and Paintsil, two players in their mid-20s that most Galaxy fans must have identified on Google as LAFC recruited French World Cup stars Hugo Lloris, 37, and Olivier Giroud, 38.

The scenario had reversed.

LAFC has hardly had a bad season. He won 19 games and finished ahead of the Galaxy in the regular season standings by one goal in the goal differential tiebreaker. They were the only MLS team to make two finals and win the U.S. Cup trophy. Yet after playing a record 103 games in less than 20 months, the team simply ran out of gas, losing two of its final three playoff games, with the last loss coming to Seattle in overtime.

What would have been a hugely successful year for any other MLS team was a disappointment for LAFC, whose standard has always been higher.

“It’s not black or white, was it a good season or a bad season,” defenseman Ryan Hollingshead said. “There were some really big moments where the team stepped up and handed out trophies in our case. And there are other times when we want more.

“The standard we have set for ourselves here is good. We want to win everything. This sounds like a big disappointment. It’s so disappointing.

Today, the Galaxy is chasing that higher standard and trying to win it all. So LAFC should be given credit for raising the bar and redefining excellence, not only in Southern California, but throughout MLS.

Credit the Galaxy for climbing up from the ground to clear that bar and take his neighbor’s stick.

You’ve read the latest opus of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and highlights unique stories. Hear Baxter in this week’s episode of “Podcast “Corner of the Galaxy”.

This story was originally published in the Los Angeles Times.