Coming off of last season’s return to the MLS Cup playoffs, the Galaxy should have entered the third season under Greg Vanney riding the wave of optimism.
Instead, there’s a mix of optimism and frustration hovering as the 2023 season finally kicks off Saturday at FC Dallas.
The optimism stems from how the Galaxy finished last season. A late regular-season run, coinciding with the arrival of midfielders Gaston Brugman and Riqui Puig, saw the Galaxy post a fourth-place finish in the Western Conference and advance to the Western Conference semifinals.
“We finished last season having found a formula and a way of playing and a system and we were probably the in-form team heading into the playoffs,” Galaxy goalkeeper Jonathan Bond said. “I felt like the game that we got knocked out (in the conference semifinals) against LAFC could have gone either way. It was tight margins and it went to stoppage time.
“We win that game, we could have ended up getting to the MLS Cup final. …It’s about really for us putting together more of a consistent season, looking at the Supporters’ Shield, we need to focus on the league season and try to finish near the top and try to be as consistent as we can be.”
Last season, the Galaxy advanced to the playoffs for first time since 2019. Trying to build off of that has been the focal point this offseason, but it hasn’t been smooth.
And that’s where the frustrations enter the story.
As preparation for the season began, the Supporters Group released a joint statement in January saying it would boycott following the news that team president Chris Klein had received a contract extension.
In December, the Galaxy was fined $1 million in future General Allocation Money by Major League Soccer and banned from bringing international players in during the Summer Transfer Window due to 2019 salary-cap violations in the signing of Cristian Pavon. Klein was suspended by the league and will return at the end of the Primary Transfer…
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