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

What is your evidence that Vanney “developed” Riqui or Dejan? Both were excellent from Day 1. Dejan led the league in g/90m upon arrival. Riqui turned our season around in his first month. And the idea that Greg is teaching the La Masia product rather than the other way around is a stretch, IMO. And I’m pretty sure Dejan became a DP because he aged out of the U-22 designation.

Those two players seem more like evidence of great acquisitions than Vanney’s coaching expertise.

tl;dr - “Not getting worse” is not evidence of player development.
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I do think Riqui took some real strides in leadership in his Galaxy career but, for sure, the talent was not developed here.

 

I agree on most of what you said, and you are correct on Cabral. I forgot he was Vanney's choice so Greg sould take a big part of the blame here. Not sure he wanted him as a DP though (and there are probably some dark interventions from Kirovski here).

On Bibout I'll wait because I've never been high on him and his international tag always hurt him. So far he's doing OK but I'm not sure he'll go much further than 2nd-string European championships.

On Judd Bruce may have been a little bit lucky here : it's not him who brang Preston to SJ, and he didn't play him much in his first year (and Judd often struggled when he played). Bruce hadn't much choice in his players choice because SJ owners are cheap so he built something great with nothing, but I'm not sure Judd is his first choice. By the way I've always been a Judd fan and we should have kept him instead of signing Miguel Berry.

On Araujo and Dejan (and Riqui Puig since @skydog mentioned me on him) : he conducted their development and we have to be fair to Vanney and say he probably had a role here, even with the obvious talent they had. It's not fair to blame Vanney for everything when a player's trajectory is going backward, and say "it's all about talent" when everything works.

 

No. Dejan was signed to a contract through the end of the 2025 season but his cap hit would have been way bigger in 2025 because he aged out of the U22 designation.

Instead of having a bigger cap hit and losing Dejan on a free a year later, the Galaxy chosed to ship him elsewhere and SKC signed him to a new contract, a DP contract.

 

Indeed Bruce didn’t bring him to SJ, however he did choose to ship out two forwards who on paper were better than Judd. That he decided to keep Judd as his first choice 9 instead of either Chicho or Martinez, and now Judd is having the best year of his career is kind of my point here as far as Greg being unable to get much of anything from our young guys who need to develop into their potential.

On Bibout my point is more that the bidding war in Europe indicates there was potential there that we didn’t even bother to try to unlock. Instead we brought back Nascimento who isn’t good and has basically been injured this entire season and will go back to Brazil having done nothing for us in 2026. I speculate that Nascimento was brought back because Greg felt he understood and worked better for his system than Bibout would have. Which if true just means Greg isn’t the right manager to coach these types of players to their potential as the system will always come first over everything.

 

I think it’s more that Greg just isn’t a good evaluator of talent. Took him a year and a half to see Cabral was trash. That alone indicates a basic lack of observational skills. He benched McCarthy because he thought Micovic was going to be the next big thing. He limited Dejan to mop up minutes for his first season. He thinks Yamane and Yoshida are good defenders - they are not. He played Garces one game at midfield and he looked pretty good so he never tried again. Early on he was making a lot of the decisions when we brought in a bunch of French (I believe?) players, none of whom worked out. Sorry, but soccer-wise Vanney isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

 

On Dejan. Remember when Greg would give him 5 minutes at the end of matches, he’d score a goal and end up back on the bench until the 85th minute of the next game. Then after a few times, he got a start, didn’t score and went straight back to the bench.

I’m probably exaggerating a bit through faulty memory, but I do know Dejan did the point to your watch celebration after one of his late-late sub goals.

 

We should have built our team around Dejan and Riqui. In hindsight the terrible injury to Riqui is a fly in the ointment but I think at the time that would have been a smarter direction than the one we took. Losing a cf like Dejan was a bit of a disaster. Talented young goal-scorers are very hard to find. Btw, I put the poor planning on the FO, much more than on Greg.

 

Absolutely this. There are wingers out there to replace Pec or Paintsil, but there are very few forwards as skilled as Dejan.

 

Many of the players that were able to go on to be better elsewhere is proof that the team is not complete crap at spotting talent. The primary point of the first team shouldn't be to act as an academy for other teams elsewhere though; and if certain guys are not fitting into a style system really well, then it is best for their career to move them on if the team is not going to be really flexible on switching up on the style of play. Greg Vanney for all of his faults is still a 2 time MLS Championship Winning Coach. Yes he has many valid excuses for the team's current struggles that are outside of his influence, but there are just as many valid excuses for it's struggles due to his influence as well. That being said, it would not only a lie but it would be a completely unfair overreaction for any of us to speak like he has been nothing but complete trash as a coach in general in his career.

 

This was never going to happen as those 2 guys(Pec and Paintsil) had just got here and were under contracts that they had just signed during that championship run. Unless DeJan was willing to settle for only a small raise only or the league was willing to create a 4th DP spot, DeJan was always going to need to go elsewhere sadly.

I still miss him though also so I get everyone's sentiment.

 

Taking this a step forward, the Galaxy's publicly stated player acquisition strategy, per Kuntz, was to sell Paintsil and Pec (as well as other players) for more than their acquisition costs. IIRC, that was approximately $6mm and $10mm respectively. Since they are still on the squad, I can only assume that the Galaxy haven't received offers that meet that criteria. Can you imagine being in Kuntz's shoes and going to AEG and Uncle Phil and saying "Sorry we made an acquisition error on those two and we need an additional $4 to $6mm because we have lost money on them."

 

Dejan still had a year on his contract when we sold him. It's not unreasonable to assume he would have stayed if we promised him a DP contract after that. Pec should have been moved by now. With hindsight we could have given Dejan Puig's DP slot, especially for this year. Dejan is on the worst team in the league and he has 6 goals this year...you have to think he would have more than that with us. It's an interesting debate.

 

It's a debate only if:

1. Kuntz is willing to admit that signing Pec for over $10mm was a mistake.
2. Kuntz can get the powers that be to pony up additional millions to:
   • Offer Dejan a DP contract that he will accept. He currently makes $3mm per season, over a million more than Pec.
   • Find an adequate Young DP replacement for Pec, assuming that the transfer fee of this Young DP was the same or more than what the Galaxy paid for Pec.

 

Happy that Dejan is getting paid.

Kuntz is going to have to face the Pec music at some point. His value was highest right after we won the Cup. It's only going down now. Kuntz missed his chance to sell. He has 18 months left on his contract, I wonder what the plan is? We could lose him on a free, or we have to move him after this season.

Yes I think Kuntz could have paid Dejan $1 mil more than Pec, especially with no transfer fee involved. Goal scorers are the most highly valued asset and the hardest to find. I don't think Vanney/Galaxy ever valued Dejan as highly as they should have.

 

i agree about facing the music and Pec's diminished value. The problem with Young DP signings like Pec was is that they are valued based upon their potential, and the Galaxy probably overpaid by some amount for him. I also agree about Dejan vs Pec and their relative value.

I don't think that Kuntz has the power of the purse for the Galaxy beyond certain budget boundaries. Thus I don't think he had the power to make these decisions.

 

Every time I diss Pec, he has a great game...lol

 

I resemble that remark as well. That was the result, I was hoping for but not expecting.

 

LOL!