CARSON — In Major League Soccer there really is no rest for the champion.
The Galaxy hoisted their sixth MLS Cup trophy on Dec. 7. This week, the club opened preseason training camp. In one month, the 2025 regular season kicks off. Until then, there are big decisions that need to be made and a few that have already been made.
“The goal going into the offseason was to run it back,” General Manager Will Kuntz said Thursday. “We obviously want to win again and do it with as much continuity as possible. The reality is, in MLS, it’s really difficult to be able to keep together a contending team.
“We’ve been trying to walk the right line of keeping the continuity as much possible, but also having a roster that’s sustainable with our league rules. It’s been really hard and painful, I think as we’ve all seen from the transactions that we’ve made … it’s not easy. This league punishes teams for having success. No one is going to feel bad for us, but it’s a real problem.”
Since celebrating the championship win on their home field, the Galaxy have traded homegrown defender Jalen Neal (CF Montreal), midfielder Gaston Brugman (Nashville SC) and midfielder Mark Delgado (LAFC). All three moves helped the Galaxy toward salary cap relief.
“Every year in MLS, unfortunately you go through roster shifts and changes and sometimes as coaches you have to let the dust settle a little bit to see what it will actually look like when it’s all done,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “Trying to build our vision for 2025, but understanding that we have a title to defend, expectations to fulfill. The intention and attention is on the process.”
Complicating matters for the Galaxy is the absence of star midfielder Riqui Puig. Puig suffered an ACL injury in the Western Conference final. He’s currently back home in Barcelona as he begins his rehab process.
“We’ve certainly lost some important guys, which unfortunately sometimes happens,” Vanney said. “The more success you have, sometimes the more challenges you have to keep a group together. We’ll see as we go through the next couple of weeks, hopefully clarity starts to set in and guys start to get here and start to prepare for what’s to come.”
So far, the Galaxy have added another goalkeeper (JT Marcinkowski), midfielder Sean Davis and defender Mathias “Zanka” Jorgensen. The club is trying to land midfielder Lucas Sanabria from Nacional in Uruguay. Kuntz said there is progress being made and hopes to have it finalized “sooner rather than later.”
The Galaxy also re-signed defender Maya Yoshida to a two-year contract.
The upcoming schedule will be more crowded with the Campeones Cup, CONCACAF Champions Cup and the Leagues Cup along with the 34-game MLS regular season, placing an importance on building a strong roster, even with the departures.
“The pieces that we will add, which I’m sure there’ll be two to three more pieces to come between now and the start of the season, we’ll get a feel for the strengths of those players and how they will fit into the ideas that we will have as a team,” Vanney said. “Guys that gained experience last year, like Mauricio (Cuevas), we need him to take a step forward this year, more games, more opportunities for him. I suspect he’ll be more ready to contribute this year than even where he was last year.
“Isaiah (Parente) and Tucker (Lepley) these are guys who spent a year with us, we know a lot about what they bring to the equation, they understand the way we want to play so that makes me comfortable in finding the right moment and using those guys. Ruben (Ramos) has continued to grow inside of all of these experiences and I think he’ll play a role this year and be able to step in, we have (defender) Julian (Aude) back and healthy, hopefully we can keep him there, we missed him for big chunks last year, so it will be nice to have him and his quality back in the group this year.”
Gabriel Pec and Jorgenson are due to arrive over the weekend. Unlike last season, Joseph Paintsil is in camp from the beginning. Last year, he arrived days before the season opener and went on to play a combined 70 games between Genk and the Galaxy.
“Teams are really going to come at us now,” he said. “But we need to be really prepared for every difficulties or everything that’s going to try to make things difficult for us.”