Except that Frank Yallop was the coach in 2007 not Gullit who was the coach for the first part of the 2008 season until replaced by Arena. FWIW, Gullit did a better job coaching the 2008 squad then Bruce did (1.2pts per game vs .8). Also the 2007 squad under Yallop did marginally better than the 2008 squad did under either Gullit or Arena. This despite the fact that Beckham was never healthy in 2007 and was healthy for the first part of 2008. I don't recall him being injured in 2008, but he certainly tanked the second half of the season (IMO so he could be free to join AC Milan when the season ended).
I typed in “2007 LA Galaxy Roster” and worldfootball.net gave me a roster labeled 07/08 since they are geared toward Fall->Spring leagues. But you are right, the players and coach I listed were for 2008. And Gullit coached from Jan -> mid-Aug and left after a 7-game losing streak. Doesn’t change the point I made at all. That roster was riddled with holes and had a terrible manager who didn’t even show up for practices regularly - that team still outperformed the 2025 Galaxy.
Yeah but that team had prime Edson Buddle and Landon Donovan. 2025 team doesn't have a single player that can match either of them. And even 85% Beckham is better than most of our team.
Donovan is of course the best. I would put Pec and even Paintsil up against Buddle. If we had a good, creative midfield they would be scoring in bunches, like they did last year. Agree about Becks. But Tudela, Randolf, Gavin, Roberts, Allen were USL level players IMO. Of course competition is tougher now as well.
At least we’re not going to be the worst MLS team in history, right? Another wooden spoon is one thing. Worst team in MLS history would hurt. At least it would be painful for me.
I often find myself wondering what DO the players practice all week? And the 2025 Galaxy don’t have the Pele of Evansville (like that Gullit team did)
So, he's telling us that there's a chance? The scenarios are in! The LA Galaxy can be eliminated from the post-season if 1 of the 3 scenarios play out. #LAGalaxy #MLS pic.twitter.com/6yByUwGhpw— Corner Of The Galaxy (@GalaxyPodcast) September 10, 2025
I mean, if we win out and every single remaining match got the result we needed, it could mathematically happen. But as you can see, the math ends soon.
I was taking some minor pleasure in tracking just how bad we have been this season, but even that got tiresome.
Apparently Riqui will not play at all this season. Another fumble by the organization. I don’t think it’s hindsight to say Puig should have been out on the IR list to bolster the lineup.
Yes although you don’t get to replace him with a DP and then when he comes back the following year you are over the cap.
True, and I fully admit to not knowing how much it would have saved, but maybe we could have kept Delgado or Brugman for this year.
Well it would have cost the team money as you still have to pay Riqui. Then you pay the new player on top of that. On the other hand, if the team had done that and put him on the season ending list right from the beginning and then right now was in a desperate fight for the final playoff spot, and the fans saw Riqui training with the team but he couldn’t play, we’d be screaming about that as well….
Oh and apparently the rule for a DP on the season ending list from the start of the season is you get back the budget charge — so $700k cap space or whatever max salary is. But you don’t get a DP spot or any money. So you can’t replace them with a DP or even a TAM player unless you have some available TAM already. So not sure even if we had done that if we could have kept Delgado, with how screwed we were on the salary cap. But maybe….
It’s interesting to me how some other teams have managed to have successful season after successful season. The Sounders have had only one season finishing below 4th. They won MLS Cup twice and both time they reached the Final the subsequent year. LAFC has won the SS twice, MLS Cup once and never finished below 9th in their conference. The year after they won the Cup they again reached the final and were runners-up. So how can we act like this disastrous year was just the natural result of prior year success? We seem to be more of the Atlanta model. We are now great when we have superstars carrying us and mediocre or terrible otherwise.
Counterpoint. In the last 5 years we’ve won more MLS Cups than Seattle (1) and we are tied with Seattle for Supporter’s Shields in the past 10 years (0). Sustained excellence doesn’t necessary lead to championships. But yes, Seattle has been the gold standard for sustained excellence in this league and it isn’t even close.
All true. We managed to squeeze a coveted Cup in there, sandwiched between the other disappointing Vanney-led seasons. But my main point wasn’t to compare overall franchise success but to point out that post-Cup hangovers aren’t the inevitable cost of success. Quite the opposite for LAFC & SEA; three of their Cup wins were followed by extremely strong MLS runner-up seasons. I think some reasons for our post-Cup meltdown were a) being limited to 2 healthy DPs, b) our U-22 DP strategy leading to salary cap blowups as they age out, coupled with AEG’s refusal to convert the sale profits to TAM c) poor off-season signings and d) Vanney’s inability to adapt his playing tactics to his available personnel. The availability of only 2 healthy DPs is not a great excuse, certainly not for a Wooden Spoon season. Other teams have been relatively successful under similar constraints. The other 3 reasons amount to perennial FO failures - acceptance of mediocrity without accountability, talent identification mistakes and AEG greed. I had hoped Kuntz would change the FO culture but unfortunately, after a sizzling start, his leadership has fizzled.
Yup, Vanney being tied to such an inflexible system is obviously the most frustrating thing. We saw the same thing in his time at Toronto - when he had the right players and they stayed healthy, the team was in MLS Cup Finals. And when he didn't, they didn't even make the playoffs. The only difference is that he had the players and health in multiple seasons at Toronto and so far only one season here in LA.