Wasnt Vanney a coach/GM wrapped into one at Toronto sort of like Bruce Arena was with us? I would think Vanney is just going to assume the GM role as well to streamline things. I’m don’t like the optics of this though. It seemed like DTK couldn’t get out of here fast enough this year which smells like trouble behind the scenes to me.
I agree. However, there are very few areas where Vanney and DTK's background don't seriously overlap. As has been mentioned previously, Greg was both Toronto's HC and GM. What I haven't seen mentioned here, is that Greg was the Academy Director for RSL from 2008 to 2011 and helped start the Grande Sports World. Not to mention that his first position at Toronto was as Assistant GM and Academy Director (in 2013). Several of his staff also have academy backgrounds especially Hartman who was the technical director for IMG Academy in Bradenton Fl, for almost 3 years before joining the Galaxy academy organization. Thus while I have no particular insight, it wouldn't surprise me if Greg (in conjunction with his staff) had his/their own ideas about youth development. I think the more interesting staff position is the technical director Jovan Kirovski. On the Galaxy website, his entry looks like it hasn't been updated since Bruce left (and Bruce is still mentioned as the GM and head coach). He appears to be little more than a travelling scout.
Vanney worked with two highly-regarded MLS GMs in Tim Bazbatchenko and Ali Curtis. In addition Leiweke was involved until 2015; he and Bazbatchenko were pretty influential in bringing in a lot of the big names, including Bradley, Defoe, Jozy and Giovinco. Though I think I heard somewhere Vanney was an assistant-GM for part of his time there? Frankly, Vanney never knocked my socks off with TFC and seemed to, at least from an outsider's perspective, under-perform relative to his talent which was the most expensive in the league for a few years straight. TFC's peak was relatively underwhelming frankly, compared to Galaxy 2010-2014, or Seattle's from 2016-2020 and accounting for the weaker Easter Conference: a single MLS Cup and SS, and runners-up in CCL, sandwiched between a loss in the final at home and failure to even make the playoffs the next year. Vanney hasn't done anything this year to disabuse me of this perception, really.
The tone of a workplace is set at the top so I’m skeptical of us seeing a really well run organization while CK is occupying that position. Hope to be proven wrong.
Kirovski's our main European-based scout, is my understanding, where he wheels-and-deals on relationships he's made both during his playing days and time with the Galaxy. He was instrumental in both the Alessandrini and Zlatan deals. He was the one scouting Alfredo Morelos in Scotland when we were briefly linked to him last year (who in retrospect might not have been a bad signing; a guy with double-digit goals in his last few seasons of the SPL, not far from what Johnny Russell was doing once upon a time). Of course many of other European signings from that era were pretty dicey (Joao Pedro, Michael Ciani, Jordan Skibbix, Rolf Feltscher etc.) but I don't know how much he had to do with those. I think it's under-estimated how well-known and respected Bruce is abroad. He basically made handshake deals with Ashley Cole and Nigel de Jong. Te Kloese seemed to come on-board almost exclusively for his connections to FMF and Chicharito, which seems relatively short-sighted in the grand scheme of things. Even GBS flexed his connections to bring in a highly regarded Argentine prospect. So I hope we get someone with really good connections to top leagues / players, especially given we have a DP spot to fill.
I want us to again be the team that has articles like this written about our coaching staff: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/colo...-robin-fraser-shares-secrets-of-their-success
Yeah, see, this is what was going around the net when Vanney and Toronto announced that they were going their own ways. I read it and laughed at it nervously and didn't take it too seriously but now? Maybe these people had a point and I dismissed it thinking the prodigal son and all that jazz. That's why any sort of halfassing teKloeses position and giving it to the ballboy or doing away with it completely in some hybrid manifestation is bad news. I have hope Vanney can turn it around but he is suspect or unproven in other positions. I want him to be the coach and that's it. I dont want to set up some excuse of oh, I had too many duties and too many hats and I could not concentrate on being a coach 100% but next year... horseshit.
Don't get me wrong; I still think Vanney was the right hire. Achieving MLS coaches are in short supply frankly, which is why LAFC could be in the dog house for awhile potentially. But I do think he'll need an ambitious and connected GM to support him. Even though I'm pretty disappointed we didn't make the playoffs (albeit by an extremely narrow margin) I think Vanney has the Galaxy poised for a big turnaround next year. But how we use that open DP spot is going to be a huge impact; we can't afford another Cabral frankly. It has to be an MLS MVP caliber signing.
If our new regular DP isn’t many times better than our U-22 DP then someone needs to be fired. If, on the other hand, if it is an MLS MVP contender. well that would be a real treat. Correction - someone already should be fired (last name rhymes with whine). So if we get stuck with a Cabral level regular DP then likely two need to be fired.
To clarify, even evaluating Cabral as Young DP he's been found wanting. The gold standard is players like Almiron, Atuesta or Rossi, who were Best XI candidates even despite their age -- that should be our standard, IMO. Looking at current young DPs across the league, I guess he's fairly middling -- but what does that buy us? Like, we have a better young DP than Chicago, but I think we all have higher aspirations. Not a lot of teams (any?) making deep playoff runs this year have a young DP. So I guess we're banking on him being Best XI caliber after a couple years. If his finishing improves he could get there. If we're going to use the Young DP spot, that player needs to be, at least, one of the best Young DPs in the league if not, again, an elite MLS player in general. DP spots are just too valuable and need to be filled guys who are close to elite IMO. Like, we could've kept the spot open all season and probably found somebody to come in on loan this year that could put up a 5 goal 1 assist season. Several others on our team ,including Sacha Kjlestan, put up similar numbers.
OFFICIAL: LA Galaxy General Manager Dennis te Kloese Departs Club for Position with Feyenoord#LAGalaxy #MLS— Corner Of The Galaxy (@GalaxyPodcast) November 27, 2021
I agree we got the wrong U-22 DP. Finding another Almiron is unlikely - players of his quality don’t come to MLS often. But I would be thrilled if we could find a Rossi level U22. But now that we are stuck with Cabral he only counts as 100k/yr against our salary right? So his main cost now is cash from AEG coffers and the lost opportunity cost to the Galaxy. Unless we can buy him out he has our young DP slot locked up for 4 more years IIRC. And trust me - he isn’t going to be Best 11 quality in 2 years - or 3 or 4 or 10. What does he bring? He runs a lot and is slightly fast - that’s it as far as I can tell. His technique, vision, soccer IQ, and physical strength are all poor for MLS, even at his age. And unfortunately he isn’t the speedster he was advertised as being. He’s moderately fast - thats it. I give credit to Vanney for many good signings this year, especially considering how quickly he had to get them together. Bond, Grandsir, Klinsmann, Raveloson, Villafana and Williams were good to very good pickups. Even Coulibaly could be an asset - if moved away from cb. But Cabral - that was a big swing and a miss. IMO.
I have mixed feelings about DTK tenure. He probably had a big role in signing Chicharito, but also had a few very questionable decisions : Antuna was so-so and very hard to retain long term, Yony Gonzalez was a stop-gap signing but failed (not sure it was a DTK or a GBS idea to be honest), and Pipo Gonzalez contract is still hurting us. And don't forget Katai... That said, it seems he has always had little influence on the choice of the players, who were mostly the choices of the two head coaches : the Argentinian who played with, under or against GBS, and all the 2021 signings seem to be from Vanney and Kirovski ideas. The obvious success from DTK spell is the path from the Academy to the first team : Araujo signed just a few weeks after DTK's arrival, he tried to keep a relationship with Llanez and Mendez (remember it if one of these guys come back to the Galaxy one day), the Junior Gonzalez hire for Los Dos, and maybe a few current HG players (Saldana, Neal, Perez, Dunbar...) could have an impact with the team in the future. Don't forget the two kids we snapped from Mexico a year ago (Alcala and Avalos). The benefit of DTK could come in the next couple of years. Overall, he's an improvement over Vagenas, but I'm ready to give the role to someone else. I still trust Vanney.
No surprise, but Niko Hamalainen is officially not coming back. Once a 𝕲, Always a 𝕲 Niko’s farewell message to LA✨Thank You @Niko_Hamalainen 🙏🏽 Best of Luck in the future 👊🏽 #LAGalaxy pic.twitter.com/TB4wZN2XHx— Total Galaxy (@TotalLAGalaxy) November 28, 2021
Agreed. It's the opportunity cost that hurts. We really need to press our recruiting advantage and nail our DP signings. There are fixable aspects of Cabral's game. He's often in positions to score. If he can get stronger and learn to finish, he could probably his double his 2021 output; a 10 goal season would be much closer to his value. He also seems pretty durable and half the battle with DPs is staying healthy.
Jonathan is not coming back. #ThankYouJona #LAGalaxy part ways with @jona2santos— LA Galaxy (@LAGalaxy) November 29, 2021
JDS officially gone. The right move, his best days are behind him. We need to get the new DP signing right.
Yea if we don't get an impactful mid this offseason with our DP spot, I think we are doomed for a few more seasons.
The technical foundation for soccer players is largely developed during childhood and teen years. I don’t think Ive ever seen a player with poor technical skills at age 22 develop them in their 23rd year. So while Cabral’s decision making, composure and strength will likely improve with another season I highly doubt his finishing abilities will change from the “even a blind squirrel” status we saw this season.
They are starting to clean house and they have to get most of the new signings right. Not all but most. Jona's replacement falls into the most category. They screw this up and I am taking it out on the FO but mostly on Vanney. People's jobs have to ride on getting this right. SO GET IT RIGHT! I don't even want to think on Cabral. That dude is either gonna get it right or we have to lose him fast. Either way, he should not be considered when signing new guys. Lets rebuild or reinforce the team as if Cabral does not exist. You cant go wrong then.
It seems like Gyasi has improved his technical skills in terms of touch and finishing based on the few recent games I've seen him compared to his early days with the Gs. So there is hope.
To be honest, reading this in the email I got: “We thank Jonathan for his contributions to the LA Galaxy,” said LA Galaxy President Chris Klein. “In five seasons with the Galaxy, Jonathan was a key contributor and leader for us. We very much appreciate his work ethic, professionalism and passion during his time with our club and we wish him all the best.” just pisses me off anew that we're sooooo mediocre and there's Chris Klein just pretending like everything is fine in his world and he's done nothing wrong and has nothing to worry about. Like, what's the deal with his job security? I've defended him in the past under the theory that he is not about the football side of things at all (although he likes to pop up and take credit when things are good) and really just about the business side. In the past I've said, there is an argument that the business side of things is pretty good. Well, not after last year! We had horrible attendance. Horrible stadium experiences. We seem to have no sales employees left. The whole business side of the franchise sucks ass. It really felt like we lost relevance last season and I'm not willing to blame COVID anymore. What the F does he do well to be untouchable?