Copyright Los Angeles Times
Coach Greg Vanney is fond of reminding fans that the Galaxy‘s 2025 season wasn’t just a long, dismal fall into a historically deep abyss. It was actually two seasons with wildly different results. In the first, the Galaxy were winless in their first 16 MLS games, the poorest start ever for a reigning MLS champion. That was the “fall into the abyss” part. But in the second, the team lost just eight of 25 games in all competition, going 7-6-5 in league play. Add the two records together and the Galaxy finished 7-18-9 in MLS, the worst season in franchise history. Yet it also played well enough in August’s Leagues Cup to qualify for next year’s CONCACAF Champions Cup, a significant achievement. So it’s no surprise Vanney wants to talk about the way things ended rather than how they started. “By the end of the year we were beating MLS playoff teams and we beat the top teams in Mexico,” he said. “We became a team that found our way.” However that act of self discovery came far too late to keep the Galaxy from breaking franchise records for futility: Their seven league wins and 30 points were both the fewest ever in a full season while the 66 goals allowed and minus-20 goal differential were second-worst all-time. But Vanney, who signed a lucrative three-year contract extension 13 games into the Galaxy’s winless start, believes the strong finish not only gives the players something to feel good about, it also gives the team something to build upon. They’ll close this one Saturday with a friendly against Mexico’s Club América at Dignity Health Sports Park. “We finished with some strength,” Vanney said. “We won three of the last four. We took a Champions [Cup] spot. There’s a positive energy.” “There’s no reason,” he added, “why we shouldn’t be excited. As a team who can really compete for trophies again next year, I think the foundation is there. But there are some really key parts that have to get sorted out.” The devil will be in those details. The Galaxy started their disastrous season with obvious concerns in the midfield and at striker and never sorted them out. The team knew it would be without playmaker Riqui Puig, who missed the season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, then were forced to trade midfielders Mark Delgado and Gastón Brugman and defender Jalen Neal to get under the league’s woefully tight salary cap. “Those are three of your four primary starting midfielders. How much that impacts the broader system and the functioning from everybody else was evident,” Vanney said. “The sum of the parts were very different than the sum of the parts last year.” When general manager Will Kuntz added to the exodus by sending forward Dejan Joveljic to Sporting Kansas City for $4 million in the first cash-for-player trade in MLS history, the Galaxy were left without four of the most productive players from their 2024 MLS championship team. They never recovered. “I knew the challenges. I didn’t expect the challenges would mean not winning a game in 16 [tries],” Vanney continued. “The struggles early in the season became more challenging than I was anticipating.” For Vanney, a future Hall of Famer who won five trophies with his club teams and appeared in 37 games for the USMNT as a player, then won two MLS Cups and a Supporters’ Shield as a coach, it was the most challenging season of his professional career. “The key thing is that you learn inside of that. What are those things that you need to come out of it and end up back on the other side?” said Vanney, who has had losing seasons just twice previously as a coach and rebounded by taking his team to the MLS Cup final each time. Aware of that history and confident his team has embraced those lessons, Vanney is bullish on the Galaxy’s chances in 2026. For starters, Puig is expected back. With Kuntz exercising contract options on five players and extending contracts on two others, most of the players will be returning. Yet Vanney said the roster will look different by February. “This team is definitely going to make some moves between now and the beginning of next year,” he said. The Galaxy still haven’t replaced Joveljic — they got just eight MLS goals combined from their strikers in 2025, about half what Joveljic scored by himself the year before — so finding a dangerous center forward or two is a priority. Vanney also wants to add depth on the back line and in the midfield. To do that, he’ll have to work with Kuntz, and there have been hints the coach and GM aren’t always on the same page. Vanney disagreed. “What I would say is we are in constant discussion,” he said. “I think with every decision, there needs to be a solution. We know what we need and we know how that fits together.” There’s one other thing Vanney knows: the Galaxy won’t wait 17 games for their first victory. “Yeah, I’m very confident,” he said. “I like what we’re trying to do and now we have to execute. We have to execute in the roster building and make sure we have the parts that support each other. “I believe that we can get that done. And if we do, I’m betting on this team.” Betting on them for a full season, not just the second half.
