LAFC entered MLS in 2018 as a force.
With Carlos Vela the star man, supported by Diego Rossi up front, a dominant midfield trio of Eduard Atuesta, Mark-Anthony Kaye and Latif Blessing and a rock of a center back in Walker Zimmerman, the club garnered immediate respect – and fear – throughout the league.
How the tables have turned.
A couple years removed from their record-setting Supporters’ Shield run, LAFC are 6W-7L-5D and just above the playoff line in the Western Conference. They take a five-match winless run, which includes consecutive defeats, to Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday (4 pm ET | ESPN, ESPN Deportes) to face a revitalized Atlanta United.
Where did it all go wrong? What ills LAFC? Charlie Davies, on the most recent edition of Extratime, knows where that conversation should begin.
“Their backline is horrendous,” he said. “We can start there.”
A season-ending injury (ACL tear) to Eddie Segura is a huge loss, one that’s left Bob Bradley scrambling to find the right pieces, the right formation, to stop bleeding goals. They’ve conceded 12 times in their current winless run.
“[Tristan\] Blackmon is just not ready to be that player for LAFC, the guy who will be the first one to win challenges, to step up in the aerial game, to dictate the play, to build out of the back. He’s not ready for that role,” Davies said. “For me, still a player you bring in at times as a role player, a role defender, maybe you want to make a change to your starting center backs. He’s not an outside back and as a center back he’s a little too slow in reading the game.”
And then there’s Vela, who Davies said “when he’s fit and when he’s healthy, he’s the best player in Major League Soccer.”
In 2019, Vela set the record for goals in a season with 34, but he’s scored just nine times in 22 regular-season games since as he’s battled injuries.
"He hasn’t looked like that this year,” Davies said. “He hasn’t looked motivated, he hasn’t looked fit.”’
Vela and Segura are prime examples of how injuries have affected LAFC.
“I think injuries have played a huge part in this,” co-host David Gass said. “You miss Vela for [almost] all of last year, you miss Atuesta for a huge chunk. Then you come into this year and now Eddie Segura tears his ACL.”
Gass also argued that LAFC haven’t executed the business they expected on the transfer market to properly turn over their roster.
“I think part of this was they were going to flip Diego Rossi and Brian Rodriguez, and originally Andre Horta, and that never happened,” Gass said. “That has thrown a wrench into their ability to continue to build out their roster or maybe turn it over into the next piece.”
For more from Extratime, check out the latest episode here.
