P/I/P Season 31 Game 13 - LA Galaxy at SKC, 5/13/26, 5:30 p.m. PDT - Apple TV

What happened? Where was the ugly soccer? The “we play defense for 60 minutes”?

SKC has scored 11 goals over 13 games this season, 5 of them came against the Galaxy.

 

(That one Arsenal fan voice) It's time to gooooo!

 

Epic fail. Two wins against us.

 

A team on track to be one of the worst teams in MLS history did the double over us. It is time for a new manager. The Vanney era has ran its course imo.

 

“I felt like we didn’t even get out of our hotel rooms,” said the Galaxy head coach. “We just didn’t come and meet the intensity level of the game.”

Vanney was direct in his assessment of where the game was lost. “They set up to play against our mistakes. We made plenty of them in the build. All three of their goals come off losses of possession that turn into transition attacks,” he said.

“I thought we were sloppy with the ball. I thought we were low on the intensity level. We just weren’t moving as fast as they were… we were behind the speed of it for most of the game.”

“I think it’s been hit and miss, to be honest,” said Vanney about Cerrillo’s form. “In terms of presence and ball recovery and some of the things getting us out of situations going forward, it’s been up and down. Not consistent enough.”




Gee, if only it was someone’s job to address these things that happen again and again.

 

Also Cerrillo is getting blamed for the first goal but Garces sent him a weak-ass ball when he was facing away and tightly covered. Cerrillo maybe could have done better with it but he should never have been put in that position. And this is coming from someone who is not a Cerrillo fan.

 

Passing the ball to a central covered teammate just outside the box is a Soccer 101 major mistake that should have been drilled out of our players by now. (Even Busquets gave up goals when put in that position.) Vanney teaches them nothing as far as I can tell.

 

Vanney is unbelievable. Like he doesn't know the team is tired, 3rd game in a week and on the road. So why start Reus? Why have the team pushing up? Why play Cuevas at RB when you know his defense is terrible. Should have started Yamane at RB and Thommy for Reus. Vanney needs to go be an assistant for Bruce and learn how to manage a game.

 

I'm now equating Vanney's approach to what a lot of "elite" youth coaches do here, grab the high end talent and let them go out there without fundamentals and loose guidelines, it works well when your talent is superior to the other clubs and breaks go your way (both of Vanney's Championship teams), however when the other clubs have comparable talent or just below and the fundamentals and structure are in place the less chance of success goes up and you’re left with excuses and deflection of accountability

 

I think Cuevas’ is an ok defender when he is back defending but he lacks positional discipline. When he sees our entire midfield pushed up in the final third he needs to realize that he needs to hang back a bit to provide defensive cover. Of course that is what a coach like Bruce would require of him - unfortunately we don’t have a coach like Bruce.

 

Matt Doyle answered a few questions about coaching in MLS in his newsletter this week that immediately made me think of Vanney.

The questions



Matt Doyle:

"These two are kind of related. For the first… it’s just tough to tell. Even in an era in which it feels like there’s so much churn, MLS coaches get such a long leash compared to coaches in peer leagues around the world. There is pressure to win here, yes, but it’s not the immediate pressure that comes with the threat of pro/rel.
And so, coupled with it, is the pressure to build. Wicky, for example, can clearly win in Switzerland, but he’s so far out of his depth here because he does not seem able to build anything. MLS coaches have to build a winning game model, but also have to build up the players within it, and get them to improve step by step. Partially this is them just making a young, flawed player into a better player; partially this is them crafting a tool for a specific job, because you’re not just thinking about the game this weekend. You’re also thinking about six, 12 or 18 months from now.

Now, my hunch is that the best coaches in the world do this anyway. We’ve all seen video of Pep showing $100 million midfielders the correct way to receive a pass, right? Hansi Flick has worked tirelessly on getting his cadre of young defenders to actually talk to each other on the field in order to perfect their offside trap. Diego Simeone literally teaches his players how to take an angle to close down the ball.

Really granular stuff for three of the best in the world, with the biggest budgets. Stuff you’d expect a U-12 coach to do. At the very highest level of the game, they’re still doing it.

But I do think those guys are probably outliers. And anecdotally, I’ve heard plenty of stories of MLS coaches (not just imports; domestic guys, too) who simply roll the ball out for training, say “do this” and just watch. There’s zero individual work on tactical awareness or technical improvement. (My guy Bobby Warshaw, in his book, had a whole chapter on this.)

This is why I look askance at teams who field largely older lineups of imported players. I think that’s a dead giveaway that the coaching staff does not, in fact, know how to build anything – either an ambitious game model or a path to real improvement for young players who need refinement but lack dominant physical traits. Instead of real coaching, those guys are just relying on the individual players’ experience and professionalism to keep the defense solid and do work on the counter. And that’s all those teams will ever be."

Watching this team over six years now I strongly believe that Vanney falls into the category of coaches who roll the ball out for training and just watch. In six years I have NEVER seen this team look like they are comfortable and confident in their structure and their tactical instructions. Even in 2024 when we were incredibly lethal in attack you always felt the team was going to cough up a goal or two from giant defensive mistakes. It just didn't matter if we did because we would just go and score another goal or two. Without Riqui to make that possible we get what we have seen in 2021, 2022 (until Riqui showed up), 2023, 2025, and now 2026.

The good performances at home against RSL, Vancouver, and the win away at Atlanta had me hoping that he had made some tactical adjustments I just don't have the eyes to see, but after watching SKC of all teams do the double on us I don't think he is the right fit for this squad or this club anymore. It is year six now and whatever he is trying to do has run stale. We need a change at the WC break or sooner.

Edit: Also here is a thread from TFC fans on reddit from years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/tfc/comments/cru75m/vanneyout/ Some pretty familiar sounding complaints.

 

Very good summary/analysis. By both of you. Agree 100%.

PS- Those TFC complaints read like they were copy/pasted from our threads. Weird lineups, poor sub choices, la k of player development, looking like team has no plan or structure.

 

Highlight Time Folks


A couple of observations,...

1) We went into that game wayyyyy to relaxed. The lethargy from everyone stank up the whole pitch. I get we just played a game on Saturday but still we can't have that level of effort. Just one weak a$$ pass after the other. SKC was desperate and despite their 3-0 win they only got it because we played with a "This Should Be An Easy 3 Points" so we don't need to be aggressive and focused for 90+ straight minutes attitude that allowed them to capitalize on our mistakes caused almost exclusively due to lack of serious work rate.

2) Cerrillo's is regressing like crazy. His passing has become so bad its not even funny. I don't know if he needs to ride the bench for a few games until he gets his head on right but this crap is not pretty. Same with Miller. He started off so well this year but is getting a bit worse with each game. Perhaps he needs to go back to the bench as well.

3) Paintsil as a forward sucks. He is better out wide on attack. It's not all his fault though because,...

4) This team is utter utter dogcrap without a true central midfield playmaker to act as the glue and advance the ball into the final third on a consistent basis. I mean Gooooollllyy We Struggle to create in the middle. Over and over and over again we work our way up a flank but then we can't get central to make a shot. And when we do try to just take the ball up the middle we got guys like Cerrillo passing to the other team with turnovers or just out right hoofing the ball out of bounds repeatedly instead of to the forwards and wingers that are trying to make runs.

5) Reus is most effective as a supersub! GAWDDANGITT GREG VANNEY BUNKER FOR 60 minutes and THEN you sub him into the game! He is our only consistent central playmaker and you know he doesn't have the speed and stamina to out run the fresh legs of the youngsters he is up against weak in and weak out! Yes he is a stud but he is also still 36 FRICKING YEARS OLD!!!

F#%K trying to win pretty!
UGLY WINNING IS STILL WINNING!
UGLY WINS SAVE COACHING JOBS!!!
SERIOUSLY MAN ARE YOU TRYING TO GET FIRED FOR F@#K'S SAKES!?!?

I said after the Portland draw game that your average MLS team needs a minimum of 45 points to make it into the playoffs. We have 11 games before we get to the halfway point of the season where if you did want to fire Vanney that would be the time to do it before it was too late to turn the season around in a serious manner. The halfway point begins after the LAFC game on 7/17. That means we had a maximum of 33 possible points that we could get before the St Louis Game on 7/22.

I said that Vanney needed to be able to get a least 5 Victories in order to potentially save his job before the St Louis Game because it was going to be Hella hard to survive not getting sacked despite the valid excuse that you are still missing your best player and the GLUE of your attack in Riqui Puig and now you want be getting your one year only Double Digit Striker in Klauss (who is also getting DP money by the way) back until Fricking AUGUST at the earliest!

Well so far Greg has seen the team to 3 victories with only 3 games left before the halfway line. The Galaxy needed this win tonight! It was the easiest of the 3 games to pull this off my 5 game requirement. Yes there is still time and even if we got another win to get the team to 4 victories before St Louis I don't know if Greg will make it. I don't want the man to fail but its looking bad for him.

I came into this game with hope and now I am starting to wonder if he will make it to the dawn,...






Sigh,.....CRAP!!!

ONWARD MY G's!!!!
ONWARD STILL!!!

 

Me too. I wouldn’t say I was cautiously optimistic more like skeptically hopeful.

In hindsight I wonder how much the two generous non-calls by the referee in the RSL and Atlanta games had affected on recent results.

—-

Not only are the goals we conceded to SKC nearly 50% of their goals scored this season, we are 100% of the wins in their 2-2-8 record.

 

Is Ted Lasso available?

 

last I checked he was on a slow boat back to Engerland to manage the Ladies of AFC Richmond

 

Wilfred Nancy is out there waiting. I'm so done with Vanney. He will never change, this is his exact MO out of Toronto. It's past time to move on.

 

solid observations

by your criteria of 5 wins, as of right now the Galaxy have 4 wins from the table I looked at, so Greg would need to win 1 out of 5 games which is the midway point of the games played season, if I got that right, which should be doable, however looking at the schedule and just by going by the current stats, the only game I see the Galaxy having a good chance of winning is one of the St Louis games and after the KC games, that is not a guaranteed win, tougher times seem to be ahead

I do differ on one thing, to me the "halfway" point is the World Cup break, because its such a long break, it will allow the team to make any changes and tweaks and when they start up again it will feel like like a new season and the optimism of them righting the ship and being a whole new and improved team will be at its highest point

 

I've been ready to move on from Vanney for a long time now, but with the contract extension he got during one of the worse stretches in Galaxy history, I wonder what the FO and Kuntz are thinking and what the plan is

if they're in lockstep with Vanney and their organizational roadmap includes Vanney's soccer vision, I would doubt they would bring in a person of Nancy's stature unless they're willing to scrap everything and start a new roadmap, I think eventually they will get to that point but I haven't seen an inkling that the FO is fed up with the way Vanney is managing the team and by that time Nancy will be with another club and most likely succeed and it will leave some us wondering why the Galaxy didn't scoop him up when they had the chance

 

Words cannot express how much I hate the word intensity. It reeks of Juergen Klinsmann.

 

Thanks for that comparison, Berks. I knew Vanney’s unearned smugness reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t remember whom. Add in the throwing of players under the bus and we have a match!

(Ok, Klinsmann was much worse. Different species, but same family.)

 

Been listening to the resurrected Squadcast and one good point Chris Tucker has made across a few episodes is that every player we have ever brought in under Vanney becomes a depreciating asset. No one gets better, they all get worse, and their value drops precipitously by the time they are moved on to another team.

I know Kuntz has been on record somewhere saying he wants this to be a club where players can come here as relative unknowns and go on to "become stars." This is basically saying we are a buy low sell high club now. Which is fine by me, I want to be a club like that as it is more sustainable in MLS I think.

But if your head coach makes every player you bring in worse, I don't think that model can really work. So either Kuntz isn't doing his job with player recruitment, or Vanney is not doing his job with building up our players into appreciating assets.

The one exception I can think of to our players depreciating in value is Efrain Alvarez who sold for a healthy amount to Liga MX I think. That said the fact that he never really looked like anything special for us, but proceeded to light it up in Liga MX and is now a part of the 55 man preliminary roster for Mexico in the World Cup does not speak highly of Vanney's player development acumen.

Based off that and the last 6 years in general I am pretty sure it is not Kuntz who is failing at their job.

 

I agree it's depressing how our strategy of "buy low, sell high" won't work if Vanney can't develop his players. It feels like a long time ago when we thought we could make profits on Gabriel Pec or Paintsil.

To be fair to Vanney I made some research on the young players who progressed under him and on who we made some profits :

- Julian Araujo : Vanney was here for his 3rd and 4th years. Huge talent, can't blame Greg who did his job here.
- Efrain Alvarez : we sold him for a huge transfer fee but he never succeeded here and Vanney didn't help him much. Has looked better since his change of environment.
- Johnny Pérez : Vanney never manage to develop him but it's hard to blame Greg, it's always hard for offensive players from the Academy to succeed here.
- Riqui Puig : immense talent and Vanney probably helped him. But if I'm a little bit playful, Vanney probably needs more Riqui than Riqui needs him.
- Jalen Neal : his development was stopped by his will to get a raise/our salary cap issues, Vanney didn't do much with him.
- Dejan Joveljic : developed from a promizing U22 to an excellent DP, it's fair to assume Vanney probably had a role on his growth.
- Daniel Aguirre : we made a small profit on Aguirre, good business given the fact he couldn't play behind Delgado and Riqui Puig.
- Preston Judd : very small profit here, but it seems like Vanney never trusted him.

On the other hand, we invested in young players like Kevin Cabral and Samuel Grandsir and they were failures. I'm also ready to probably not make much profit on Julian Aude and Novak Micovic, and as I said above, Joe Paintsil and Gabriel Pec. Some of them are clearly mistakes from our scouting department, to be fair to Vanney. Guys like Edwin Cerrillo, Mauricio Cuevas and Emiro Garcés are very worrying as it seems their development has hit a wall.

 

I have thoughts on some of these

Julian Araujo: Came in from the Arizona Barcelona academy. I always thought that was why he was so good in the first place. No fault for Vanney, but also I doubt he did much to help him development as he was already an immense talent as you say

Efrain Alvarez: Yeah, I should have elaborated more but didn't want to write an essay. Basically the fact that he has done so well in a superior league and is on his way to a WC is the indictment for me. He never looked that good for us, but clearly the team that paid the fee from Liga MX (I think it was Tijuana?) could see he was a diamond in the rough and were the ones who actually pulled that potential out of him

Jalen Neal: Thought he was actually coming along, but I also think he is going to be constantly derailed by injury. I wouldn't put that on Vanney

Dejan: Dejan scored 18 goals in the Austrian Bundesliga for a team not named RB Salzburg. I think he was always good and find it hard to believe that Vanney had much to do with him suddenly becoming a goal scoring machine when he had Riqui Puig behind him in 2024. I could be wrong there of course, just my opinion. But in regard to depreciating assets I think it is worth noting we bought him for 3.5 million from Frankfurt and then sold him for 4 million dollars to SKC. So we pretty much broke even.

Preston Judd: Watching him cooking on an SJ team that consists of a bunch of superdraft guys and one talented German I think reinforces my point. There was real talent there, but he just didn't work with Vanney's system so he had to be moved on. Bruce Arena saw the talent though and was capable of bringing it out of him.

Daniel Aguirre: Another guy doing much better in a better league for a better team. I think Chivas just signed him to an extension. We barely saw him play so I would categorize him as another player where another team saw his potential, bought him for not much, and then did more with him than we ever did.

Johnny Perez: Largely agree with you here, but not being able to get attacking players real minutes and real contributions here is something that the next manager will have to change.

And while I was writing this I was listening to Soccerwise. Tom Bogert just said that Aaron Bibout was a player the FO wanted to give to the team (Vanney). But Bibout was not even selected for preseason and sold for next to nothing to a lower division team in Europe. Within a few matches he was the subject of a bidding war by multiple big European clubs lol.

Another player with a ton of potential that I presume Vanney (I have to imagine he had the final say on who goes to preseason) saw no value in because he wouldn't work for his system, but is good enough for bigger clubs in higher level leagues.

And yeah with the crop of players you listed who were failures, I put that on Vanney. Garces looked incredible when he first got here and was basically the missing piece to our team that allowed us to have a defense solid enough to get through the playoffs and lift the cup. Now he is unrecognizable from that player and it is honestly kind of heartbreaking as I really did love him in 2024.

Pick any player who was brought in after Vanney became the head coach and I would bet they follow a similar arc of looking good to great on arrival, with a very noticeable drop in form after a years worth of Vanney ball training sessions.

Cabral was scouted by Vanney back when he was both the GM and coach briefly.