“That was unacceptable, and it was disrespectful to our brand and to who we want to be.”
“It doesn't even matter, really, to talk about tactics or anything. There were too many gaps inside of the competitive side of it.”
“It's getting to be obscene, honestly. It's ridiculous. And the game is about margins … right now we're grinding, we're on the margins. We deserve better.”
These are a few snippets from Greg Vanney’s recent postgame press conferences, varying flavors of frustration that tell the story of the LA Galaxy’s brutal 0W-3L-3D start to 2023. From angry embarrassment with his team’s breakdowns and lack of intensity to spiraling rage with the officiating decisions LA feel keep breaking against them, Vanney has been going through it.
Mind you, the Gs’ head coach and sporting director is familiar with struggle in this game. He lived through a Ligue 1 relegation fight with SC Bastia in his playing days. He suffered an injury on the eve of the 2002 World Cup that kept him from taking part in the US men’s national team’s Cinderella run in Korea. When Vanney took over at Toronto FC, the Reds were a punchline, MLS shorthand for failure, and he led them to the mountaintop: three MLS Cup final appearances in four years and a historic treble in 2017.
Look, he’s even got Chivas USA on his coaching résumé. This is a man who’s seen some things.
Two tales of one city
It speaks volumes that the Galaxy’s struggles are so profound as to drive even Vanney to distraction. In that sense, he’s got company in the shape of the club’s supporters’ groups, who have grown so disillusioned as to launch a boycott in protest of what they perceive to be underachievement and poor leadership, centered on currently-sanctioned president Chris Klein.
The nature of last week’s 3-0 loss at Houston deepened the gloom further. The Gs finished with nine men on the pitch, with Martín Cáceres’ bewildering decision to barge into the Video Review area to lay hands on referee Alex Chilowicz prompting a second yellow card and a second-half Galaxy collapse.
It seems there could hardly be a worse moment for them to get a visit from LAFC, who happen to be undefeated in league play, tops in the Western Conference standings on points per game and en route to the Concacaf Champions League semifinals, spearheaded by early Landon Donovan MLS MVP frontrunner Dénis Bouanga. Yet that’s exactly what is happening, in front of a live network-television audience on FOX, no less, on Sunday afternoon (4:30 pm ET | Apple TV - Free, FOX) at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Form, data, vibes: All available information points to a high-profile humbling on home turf, another stinging setback to further accelerate the Galaxy’s spiral. It hurts most at the hands of the noisy Black & Gold upstarts who hit the scene five years ago and have in that time vaulted into the ascendancy: not just seizing the initiative across Southern California, but setting the pace atop the entire league with last year’s Supporters’ Shield-MLS Cup double.
A rivalry like no other
But who knows? That’s why we play the games. It’s not as if the Galaxy haven’t been here before. Just about every single El Trafico to date has been a referendum of one form or another on their current state, dating back to the inaugural edition of the rivalry game so wonderfully hijacked by a transcendent MLS debut from one Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
More often than not, the Gs have answered the call. While LAFC won the two most consequential fixtures, the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs meetings in 2019 and 2022, the Galaxy actually own the superior overall head-to-head record (7W-5L-5D). And it wasn’t always just the Ibra effect – the OGs down in Carson often seemed to relish pegging back their glitzy neighbors with rugged, workmanlike displays that showed there was still plenty of pride in the MLS originals and five-time champs.
Does Vanney’s current group possess something like that inside them? Could it be Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, finally returning from a hamstring injury, riding to the rescue this time?
On the South Bay of this rivalry lives history and tradition; downtown, it’s dynamism and dazzle. In a league constantly poised between the stable roots laid down by the elders and the alluring advances of the newcomers, El Trafico offers a contrast that runs deeper than the scramble for SoCal hearts and minds or crosstown bragging rights.
It all sets up Sunday’s affair as another marquee chapter in this perennial battle for Los Angeles.
