There is an episode halfway from the first season of “Ted Lasso” in which the team, feeling cursed, decides to remove the spell by gathering in the locker rooms at night to burn personal objects in a barrel with fiery garbage.
It may be time for the Galaxy To consider similar exorcism, because it seems clear that someone has also put a spell on him.
The team dominated Sporting Kansas City on Sunday, but lost despite not having allowed to shoot. Not a blow To the goal. A gunshot of all kinds. It had never happened before in MLS.
Last December, the galaxy won a Record the sixth League title. They have not won a match since then, with their 11 game sequence without victory equal to the longest to start a season in the history of the League. With only three points at 11 games – the Galaxy is 0-8-3 – it is also the worst start of the history of the franchise and also the worst start by an MLS title champion.
The team suddenly became the best in the worst.
Will KuntzThe director general of the team, refuses to blame the paranormal for the historically bad departure. He really doesn't have a much better explanation.
“Cursed would be too strong,” he said on Monday. “But the rebounds were certainly against us.”
It is probably an understatement. In the loss of SundayThe galaxy exceeded SKC 11-0, had the ball for almost 60 of the 90 minutes, ended almost three times more passes and, for the first time in the history of the franchise, did not allow to shoot. However, they lost when Captain Maya Yoshida died a SKC cross in his own net in the 13th minute.
The season is not quite a third of the missing path and the Galaxy is already 23 points from first place and 13 points in a place in the playoffs.
Maya Yoshida launches the ball in order after the Galaxy John McCarthy for its own goal against Kansas City on Sunday.
(Images Kyle Rivas / Getty)
Kuntz, who signed 10 of the 14 players who played in the MLS Cup final, is largely – and rightly so – credited with the list of the list which won the title last year, winning a team that equaled a franchise in the full season with eight victories at 24 victories (including eliminatory series) and a championship in less than 18 months.
Now he takes part of the blame for the lamentable start of the team.
The midfielder lost the midfielder Riqui Puig, his most irreplaceable player, to a LCA tear in the West West Conference, a defeat that GM compares to the Golden State Warriors losing Steph Curry. But Kuntz knew in December that he would be without Puig until the least August; It was an absence for which he could have planned.
He also knew that the MLS's salary rules would force him to redo parts of a list that did not need to redesign. He did it by exchanging the field circles Gastón Brugman and Mark Delgado and the striker Dejan Jveljic, the team's top scorer in 2024.
However, eight of the 11 runners from MLS cuts returned. So what's wrong?
It would probably be easier to list what did not go wrong because the season was a perfect storm of injuries, poor performance and simple bad luck.
Marco Reus, a triple player of the Bundesliga, was being counted to choose a part of the relaxation left by the absence of Puig, but he only played 322 mLS of minutes due to injury problems that almost led the galaxy to close it for the year.
At least nine other starters have already missed time for injuries this season with the wingers Joseph Paintsil and Gabriel Pec both forced the match on Sunday in Kansas City after difficult mistakes. If none is able to play on Saturday in the revenge match of the MLS Cup of the team with the Red Bulls, that would leave the galaxy without their three designated players.
“It was a sort of marguerite chain of correlated injury stuff,” said Kuntz.
Retrospectively, would Kuntz be better to keep Delgado, who has a solid season as a playmaker in the middle of the LAFC midfielder? Should they have to keep Jveljic, whose five goals for Sporting Kansas City would have made a difference for a Galaxy team only scored eight times in 11 games? (The Galaxy has conceded 21 times, leaving them with a goal differential in the League-13.)
Probably not, especially since the Joveljic agreement reported the team short of $ 4 million in return.
So, if the problem is not linked to who left, it must be linked to who has remained.
Last season, the Galaxy was the first team in MLS history to have four or more players mark. This season, only one player has scored more than once. PEC, who had 16 goals in 2024, has one this year. Paintsil, who had 10 goals 10 years ago, has not yet scored this season.
A year after having led the conference with 69 goals – an average of 2.02 per game – the Galaxy has only eight this season. They were excluded five times in 11 games – one more than all last year – are on average less than one goal per game and only led once, for 64 minutes, all season.
The defender of the Galaxy Maya Yoshida, on the left, and the goalkeeper John McCarthy React after having abandoned a own goal on Sunday.
(Images Kyle Rivas / Getty)
About the only coach thing Greg Vanney Did not try to be accompanied and try to mark. He had 11 combinations of different programs, but the galaxy remains too rigid, too predictable, using a style of play well suited to the team of last year but which does not correspond to the staff of this season.
Consequently, the team ranks 26th in the league of 30 shots on the target despite the classification in the first three in passes and in percentage of passes and sixth in time of possession.
Vanney obtained an extension of one year when he qualified for the playoffs last year, but this extension expires this season. Sources say that the team and agent of Vanney, Ron Waxman, do not progress on a new agreement and the more the difficulties of the team are long, the less Vanney has lever and the easier it becomes for the galaxy to move on.
Waxman did not respond to messages asking for comments. Vanney, however, called Sunday's defeat “a solid game and a fairly complete game”. What raises a question: if a match without objective, without victory and without a point is considered solid and complete, has the bar been too weak?
It may be time for Vanney to launch a barbecue sacrifice similar to a Lasso. On the one hand, it couldn't hurt. However, given the way things have been going on so far this season, which say that the galaxy would not eventually burn the stadium.
⚽ You have read the last episode of soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and highlights unique stories. Listen to Baxter in the episode of this week of “Podcast Corner of the Galaxy.
