This all maybe true, but the humidity and heat in the summer were awful every time l went there on business from May into early September. I did have brisk but nice weather on a couple of early November trips. I will take the weather here, especially Here in the south bay, and live with the bad traffic. I didn't spend enough time to compare leisure time activities, but I can't see it being better than here.
I like him. He’s a lot more candid than Germans usually are in my experience. I say that as the child of 2 German immigrants.
Although shot-stopping is McCarthy's strength and he legitimately saved the team a bunch of times with his saves, this is not a list where you want a Galaxy player on it. It's no coincidence that most of the goalkeepers on this list are with teams that did not make the playoffs or are lower seeds/wildcards. Stuver leads all keepers in saves. 🧤 pic.twitter.com/p36CtQJKyQ— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 22, 2024
Pretty good first season for Pec Need a goal or assist?Messi led the way. 🐐 pic.twitter.com/EfIgIO94hM— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 22, 2024
As someone posted here a while back from one of those soccer stats sites: one of Galaxy’s known weaknesses is allowing a high number of dangerous goal scoring oppotunities. Has been for several years now. We are just lucky we have a reliably great shot-stopper or else we would be further down the table.
MLS end of season awards finalists were announced today. The only Galaxy player to make it was Gabriel Pec, one of three finalists for Newcomer of the Year.
Armas (Rapids), Martino (Miami) and Nancy (Crew) for coach of the year noms; no Vanney despite some thinking he'd be in the mix. I wonder if he'd earned a spot if he managed to lock up #1?
What a surprise. Where are your complaints about Armas not coaching defense. While Colorado got better on offense versus 2023, their defense got over 10% worse giving up 60 goals in 2024 versus 54 in 2023. Shouldn't the credit for their turnaround this year go to their front office who brought in 2 new designated players for the offense and a bunch of new TAM players including a new keeper and 2 new fullbacks to shore up the defense?
Through the years, @LAGalaxy has made a lot of wasteful signings that haven't worked out, many never were going to. To its credit, Galaxy was willing to spend on Gabriel Pec. It's worked out spectacularly. Too well perhaps. He won't be in Carson long. https://t.co/ILBcjIlQ6o— Paul Kennedy (@pkedit) October 25, 2024
Yeah, Armas took a team from 14th to 7th. Vanney a team from 13th to 2nd, with better stats all around. In fact, Armas' 2024 team gave up more goals this year than Colorado did in 2023. The only difference is that Armas wasn't in charge of the team last year. So maybe he gets the "biggest improvement in their first season in charge" vote. And honestly, Nancy is the best coach in the league and it isn't even close, so the others are just distant runners up.
From his skill on the ball to his style off the pitch, @RiquiPuig is making waves in LA. 😎 pic.twitter.com/uSo0FixXYr— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 25, 2024
No way is Armas the only difference between Colorado's 23 and 24. Their 2024 roster is lot better than what Robin Frasier had to work with in 2023.
Fair, but would have preferred without the sarcasic dig at me. I didn't research Armas and was going along with the consensus - my bad. TBH I agreed with the selections mostly because of Nancy (my 1st choice) and to a lesser extent Tata (I know he has enormous talent available but he has managed the group admirably, imo. I hope me having an opinion here doesn't annoy you to much.).
I would but I cant get past the SA paywall either. And I wont pay them for an overpriced subscription.
I would like to point out in a civil manner that two MLS coach of the year candidates couldn't get their teams to the 2nd round of the playoffs losing in 2 games. Meanwhile, it remains to be determined if the third candidate will make it past the 1st round. I suspect (in a civil manner) that had the Galaxy emulated the Crew, that the Galaxy board would not have viewed Vanney in a favorable manner and that indeed any playoff loss including one in the cup final (should they make it that far) will have posters calling for his dismissal.
Yes. So far this season Vanney has been delivering the results. Which is always what matters the most.
What is interesting is that, at least in MLS, most coaches fail to win in the playoffs by almost batting average type numbers. As an example, Bruce Arena coached 19 full or partial seasons in MLS. His teams made it to the playoffs 14 times. His team "only" won MLS Cup 5 of those times. Coaches with better records tend to have shorter histories (e.g. Tato Martino is only in his 4 year of coaching MLS, Nancy has 3 years).
Gabriel Pec wins MLS Newcomer of the Year. Well deserved. https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/la-galaxy-s-gabriel-pec-named-2024-mls-newcomer-of-the-year
I never base my opinion of a soccer coach on the outcome of a few games, playoff or not. Too much randomness in a low scoring game to do that. A ball contacting a players foot a half-inch differently often determines who goes home the winner. When Vanney first started coaching for us I was a fan. I saw his MLS Cup with Toronto and initially with us. I was posting “We trust in Vanney” during his first few weeks. It was only after months of questionable performances and decisions (endless unjustifiable faith in Cabral, season after season giving up soft counter-attack goals, opponents getting off shot after shot because our defense doesn’t know how to pressure the ball) that I soured on Greg. His personality — calling our legitimate complaints about Klein “noise” — didn’t help. To be fair, this season he has improved on the game day personnel selections (well, except for on the most important last game of the regular season) and our defense has improved some. But still I can’t shake the 3 seasons of inept coaching. It doesn’t compute in my little brain how someone who can be clueless for 3 full seasons and the suddenly figure it all out. For me (and YMMV) the much more plausible explanation of our success this season are the Kuntz personnel additions, including not only the amazing Pec & Paintsil but also Yamane, Garcés and McCarthy all of whom have been stellar on the defensive end. Add in the amazing Puig and we truly have a top 2 or top 3 roster in MLS. And that is why I predicted we would end ip in 2nd even with Vanney coaching this season. We are too good to fail. But the most important thing to remember is this - my opinion doesn’t matter. Kuntz will do what Kuntz will do. And in him - I trust!
I find it interesting that the 3 MLS coach of the year candidates all failed to get the teams out of the first round and that the two top seated teams (Miami and Columbus) both lost to the bottom 2 seated teams in their conference. Just shows you get when you combine superior coaching and superior talent.
My simple take has always been that Vanney is probably a decent coach hamstrung by a bad front office. The fact that he achieved more with better talent provided by a better front office seems to validate that opinion, not prove the opposite. But again, that's just me.
I pretty much agree with this. I am also curious about the impact of Michael Stephens leaving for a similar position in Chicago. I would guess that he left for personal reasons as he grew up in Naperville, a suburb of Chicago and played there for 2 years so he probably has friends and family there. While it's clear that Kuntz had the plan that opened up AEG's purse strings, it is also unclear (from a public perspective) how much he relied upon the scouting department to identify talent.