Soccer <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to say the reigning MLS Cup champions, the LA Galaxy<\/a>, have hit crisis mode entering Matchday 3. We\u2019re just two league games into the year, and they\u2019re battling through injuries \u2013 more than what was expected before the season \u2013 while managing a double-handful of roster changes, so growing pains were probably to be expected.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Still, it hasn\u2019t been great. A lackluster first kick performance was followed by a gut punch of a late loss on Matchday 2. They\u2019re already swimming upstream.<\/p>\n It feels a little bit of the same for St. Louis CITY SC<\/a>, who came into the season with high hopes and a promising roster but have struggled to generate any sort of consistent attack through 180 minutes under new manager Olof Mellberg.<\/p>\n So what we\u2019ve got is a little bit of desperation on both sides. And desperation makes for good TV when these teams meet at Dignity Health Sports Park for Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire (7 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n LA Galaxy<\/strong><\/p>\n St. Louis CITY SC<\/strong><\/p>\n The Galaxy started the year by hanging a banner celebrating their sixth MLS Cup triumph. And that\u2019s been just about the only highlight so far.<\/p>\n LA are the most successful team in MLS history and are supposed to be building back to dominance this season. I think everyone would have understood a little \u201cone step back to take two steps forward\u201d since they had to unwind so many bad deals over the past few years, and since they are only just starting to use their academy in the way they should (18-year-old academy product Ruben Ramos<\/a> was something of a silver lining in the opener; I hope we see more of him). It\u2019s difficult to keep a successful team together in MLS, and that gets exponentially more true if you\u2019re not getting contributions from down-roster players.<\/p>\n Know what Inter Miami<\/a>\u2019s secret sauce is this year? It\u2019s not Messi<\/a> & Friends (ok, it\u2019s not just<\/em> Messi & Friends). It\u2019s Yannick Bright<\/a>, Benja Cremaschi<\/a> and Telasco Segovia<\/a>, kids they\u2019ve developed to one extent or another, who they can plug and play to keep the floor high.<\/p>\n LA mostly don\u2019t have guys like that.<\/p>\n Anyway, that\u2019s more of a long-term plan than an immediate \u201cwhat\u2019s at stake\u201d bit. That piece is simple: Galaxy fans will absolutely start to grumble if they watch their team drop a second result of the season in Carson. The vibes could start to get objectively bad.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Any time you change managers you\u2019re looking for the new-manager bounce, and I guess you could argue St. Louis have found it on the defensive side of the ball. Two shutouts in two games, and they\u2019ve allowed just 1.1 expected goals. It\u2019s legitimate improvement.<\/p>\n Yet it\u2019s been hard, for St. Louis fans in certain corners of the internet, to see what their old coach, Bradley Carnell, is doing in Philadelphia<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n The Union attack, though two games, has been devastating. The ability of the forwards to work together \u2013 to create time and space for one another \u2013 is why. pic.twitter.com\/vC11urgVJo<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) March 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n There has been almost none of this from St. Louis so far in 2025, and that\u2019s especially confusing given how much instant chemistry Eduard L\u00f6wen<\/a> had down the stretch last year with summer window additions Marcel Hartel, Cedric Teuchert<\/a> and Simon Becher<\/a>.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think there will or should be any panic. But if they start the year goalless through three games, there will be some understandable grumbling.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Small sample size, I know, but here\u2019s where the Galaxy stand after two games in 2025 vs. the heady days of 2024. All stats are per-90 via FBRef\u2026<\/p>\n Progressive Carries<\/strong><\/p>\n Progressive Passes<\/strong><\/p>\n Progressive Passes Received<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, Riqui Puig accounts for a huge chunk of the drop off \u2013 the Galaxy’s No. 10 led MLS in progressive passes (15.1 per 90, three more than Carles Gil<\/a> in second) and was fourth in progressive carries among players with more than 650 minutes played (think Denis Bouanga<\/a> levels) in 2024 \u2013 but the problem is bigger than just the former Bar\u00e7a man. Mark Delgado<\/a> mostly got applause for doing the dirty work and running, but he was a volume ball progressor too via the pass. Same for Gast\u00f3n Brugman<\/a>, in far fewer minutes.<\/p>\n The trickle-down effect is that the Galaxy wingers aren\u2019t running downhill nearly as often. Gabriel Pec went from first in Progressive Carries AND Progressive Passes Received in 2024 among players with more than 1,100 minutes played to way down both leaderboards in 2025. No Joseph Paintsil<\/a>, who ran onto a ton of the Galaxy\u2019s progressive passes in space last year, means backlines only have to be concerned about imminent danger on one side of the field.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Marco Reus is much more of a \u201cI\u2019ll sit in the pocket and wait for the ball to get to me in good spots\u201d rather than a \u201cdrop in and drive the team up the field\u201d type of No. 10. But who gets Reus the ball? And Pec? And Diego Fag\u00fandez<\/a>? And whoever plays up top?<\/p>\n That remains an open question, now and until (and perhaps even after) Puig returns.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n There\u2019s no way that drop-off was a tactical choice from Olof Mellberg. Rather, St. Louis were sloppy and wasteful when they had the ball (more on that in a second from Doyle).<\/p>\n You could very nearly count St. Louis\u2019 final third touches in San Diego on two hands. It\u2019s no surprise that they created just two shooting opportunities. More of the same on Sunday and it could be three scoreless games to open the season, and nobody (most certainly not the neutrals) wants that.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n At this point, I\u2019m not even sure.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve got so many guys ruled out, or at least ruled as questionable via injury, and are coming off a 1-0 defeat midweek<\/a> in the Concacaf Champions Cup<\/a> at Costa Rican side Herediano. It feels like there is a non-zero chance this team will be too short-handed and too gassed to do anything except put numbers behind the ball and try to counter through Pec and one of the center forwards (it would not shock me at all to see Miguel Berry<\/a> get the start over Christian Ram\u00edrez<\/a>).<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the problem with that: the Galaxy have not looked particularly good when they\u2019ve sat in with numbers behind the ball:<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2014 Major League Soccer (@MLS) March 3, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n This isn\u2019t a \u201cyoung guy makes a basic error\u201d thing, either. The center backs in this moment are Maya Yoshida<\/a> \u2013 the 36-year-old captain, who\u2019s got more than 300 appearances combined between the Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga and Eredivisie \u2013 and the 34-year-old Zanka<\/a>, a Danish international with more than 100 Prem appearances and more than 50 appearances in European continental competitions.<\/p>\n When you have guys on the field with C.V.s like that, you\u2019re not supposed to concede late, simple goals. It\u2019s the whole point of putting veterans out there.<\/p>\n So, I don\u2019t know. LA haven\u2019t figured out how to create danger with the ball this year \u2013 I\u2019ll refer you to that Reus blurb above; if he shows up, a lot of these questions probably get answered in a way that would please Galaxy fans \u2013 but they have looked vulnerable when playing against it.<\/p>\n Oh, and they\u2019re without two of their DPs (Puig and Paintsil), likely two of their U22s (Lucas Sanabria<\/a> and Matheus Nascimento<\/a>) and maybe their track-star, one-man counter-killer of a center back (Emiro Garc\u00e9s<\/a>), too.<\/p>\n Greg Vanney\u2019s got some problem-solving to do.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n They need to do the opposite of this:<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n I thought it was a weirdly timid performance from St. Louis in San Diego. And then when they did take risks, they really weren’t well-measured. pic.twitter.com\/GTrUK9wasp<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) March 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n According to folks who follow the team closely and Mellberg himself, the new coach spent a ton of time this winter rebuilding the defensive structure, which makes sense for a team that has relied waaaaaay too much on B\u00fcrki through two years. As such, they\u2019ve transitioned away from the Energy Drink Soccer-inflected 4-2-2-2 that became a 4-2-3-1 once Hartel and Teuchert arrived last summer (which coincided with John Hackworth taking over as interim head coach), and now play out of a 3-4-2-1.<\/p>\n Through two games, their line of confrontation has been much deeper. Look at this graphic, courtesy of MLS Analytics on BlueSky<\/a>, from last week\u2019s 0-0 draw<\/a> in San Diego:<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n That defensive action height is insanely low (fourth-lowest of any team\u2019s recorded all season, and two of the ones below them were logged by 10-man teams just going complete bunker). And look, it\u2019s perfectly okay to be a low-block-and-counter team, especially when you\u2019ve got a center back playing as well as Kessler has been. It\u2019s not a bad game model.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s a game model that requires aggressive and immediate verticality when the opportunity presents itself, and requires guys like L\u00f6wen and Hartel to get on the ball and open the game up in those moments. There was some<\/em> of that on Matchday 1 against the Rapids<\/a>, but it was completely missing last week.<\/p>\n One other note: right wingback Tomas Totland<\/a> had just three final-third touches in San Diego; Conrad Wallem<\/a>, on the left, had four. It\u2019s hard to create attacking dynamism if you don\u2019t create attacking width.<\/p>\n \u201cRun faster and at goal\u201d is more of a philosophical adjustment than a tactical one, but still. If St. Louis add that on top of what they\u2019ve done through the first two games, I think they\u2019ll be in pretty good shape.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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How do the Galaxy \u2026 \u201cprogress\u201d from here?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Can St. Louis clean things up on the ball?<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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LA Galaxy<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
St. Louis CITY SC<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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