P/I/P Season 30 Game 33 - LA Galaxy vs FC Dallas, 10/11/25, 7:30 p.m. PDT - Apple TV

I think Maya is better in the air. Otherwise you might be right.

But note that our defensive positioning was 100% of the issue on that goal. What happened to holding an offside line? Where is the cover? The balance? How can Vanney put out a team that positions themselves like this when holding onto a 1-0 lead???



I trained mistakes like this out of my U-14 select team. Ridiculous.

 

Not just "Puig" ball, Vanney kinda depends on having the single player talisman. Sure other plays are good, too, but even in Toronto he had Giovinco

 

As the photo shows, Yoshida and Yamane were ball watching and neither even noticed the man in front of them. Once Yoshida realized it, he sped up to try to catch him but the gap was too great. I get that sometimes Yoshida pushes forward knowing that Garces has the speed to cover him from behind, but Yoshida should be at least yelling to Garces about the man behind him.

 

True. Also if Garces & Nelson (?) pushed up with Yoshida all those players would be offside. The absolute worst position is having a trailing defender keeping attackers behind your other defenders onside.

tl;dr: Garces & other guy should be further up & Yoshida or Yamane further back. That is called balance on defense.

 

I don’t buy Vanney being hamstrung by having/not having DPs. He’s had three DPs every single season he’s been here and the team has ranged from god-awful to mediocre with the one exception that with each passing game looks more and more like a fluke.
2021 - dos Santos, Cabral, Chich; finished 8th, missed the playoffs
2022 - Costa, Cabral, Chich; finished 4th, lost in the quarter-finals
2023 - Costa, Chich, Puig; finished 13th, missed the playoffs
2024 - Puig, Pec, Paint; finished 2nd, won it all
2025 - Puig, Pec, Paint; finished last or next to last, missed the playoffs

Yes, Puig and Chich both had season long or near season long injuries, but if your team falls apart missing one player it’s not a very well constructed team. If you still have two players available with 20+ goals/assist contributions, you can’t finish dead last. If you have the third costliest roster in the league, you can finish dead last.

It’s just not good enough. This isn’t Pep having a season where Man City won nothing. This is a manager who’s failed badly 4 of the 5 seasons he’s been here, despite getting two complete roster rebuilds and is now going to get a third. What makes that last part really frustrating is if Vanney fails, the new guy is gonna get stuck with an expensive roster and we’re going to rebuild again in 2027. Of course if Vanney fails in 2026 it’s just as likely he’ll get a fourth shot at rebuilding.

 

Vanney's coaching weaknesses aside, we didn't just miss 1 player.

We missed our entire spine. Alongside losing Puig all season, We lost 2 of our best Central Midfielders, 1 of our most promising young Centerbacks who many of us predicted to be a long term starter alongside Garces, as well as a Striker who was competing for the golden boot this season on a team just as bad as we were. (A lot of that boils down to the decisions Kuntz made, which one can argue for or against any of it, but we didn't have all of the contract details in front of us, nor any of the personal discussions between Kuntz and each player)

This isn't MLS 1.0, its not even MLS 2.0. Trying to gel together a spine of mostly new players (and I mean spine, up the center of the pitch, the most important part), half of which were injured at some point during the season, will tax any manager.

And yes, no one here thinks Vanney is a "great" manager, I just think he's an adequate manager. And yes I also think as a former defender you would think Defense would be one of his strengths. But that is probably because he stems from an era of Soccer in the US when the only reason you played defender is you weren't good enough technically to be a midfielder or striker.

And as I've pointed out MANY TIMES but is constantly ignored, who else is available that is better than Vanney as a whole? For example, Caleb Porter is available but the issues with him are so glaring I don't want him. I'm open to Cherundolo, but no guarantee he would want to come here (and is he really leaving? I'm not sure)

 

We are the Galaxy. Open the checkbook and ask Schmetzer how much he wants - AEG will never notice it. It's not like we have to beg for a cast off coach. Do we want to win or not?

 

Cherundolo said he was moving back to Germany with his family - fascinating if that doesn't really happen.

 

And yes, we were missing our entire spine, so why the hell are we playing the same formation as when we had our entire spine? The coach's job is to adapt and work with what he has. No way this team should be in last place!

 

If there's any coach who is going nowhere, Schmetzer is the one. He played for the Sounders, he coached them when they were in the A-league, he assisted Sigi Schmit when they joined MLS, and now he's a fixture at head coach. How does a guy like that jump to the Galaxy, more money or not?

 

You don’t have to hire a big name. There are dozens of up and coming coaches around the world that deserve a shot. Some have a history of turning teams around and are working their way up the league ladder. Some have been assistants for great coaches and come with glowing recs. Some will work out, some won’t but they at least have a chance of taking us to sustained greatness again.

Vancouver’s coach is just one example of a not-well-known coach with a strong resume who came here and turned that team around 180 degrees. There are others.

 

No matter how we got there, it was a “defensive” setup that should never be seen on a professional soccer field unless you are down a goal with 60 second left. In fact being up a man made it worse because the only way they were likely to score was with a dumb play like this. The players (especially Yoshida) should know better and the coaches should have made sure they did. Inexcusable.

We also were beaten on the far side of the field. The whole thing was a clusterfk.

 

Truth is I don’t know, but I’m not paid millions of dollars to know these things. I didn’t know about Mike Varas, Wilfried Nancy, Jesper Sorenson, or Eric Ramsay. Almost no MLS experience and they’ve come to MLS and created very competitive teams. Sticking with a manager not suited for the job simply because there’s no one else isn’t a way to run what should be one of the flagship teams in MLS.

Three miserable, one exceeds expectations and one meets the minimum acceptable standard.