LA Galaxy 2020 MLS Season Recap

Photo credit: Kim Klement, USA TODAY Sports

Well, at least we didn’t get the Wooden Spoon.

It has been three days since Columbus Crew SC were crowned MLS Cup champions and I think now that the season is all the way over it is time to reflect on the Galaxy’s run in MLS this year.

2020 was poised to be a historic year for the LA Galaxy. The departure of Zlatan, the introduction of Chicharito, the additions of Aleksandar Katai on a free and Emiliano Insúa from Stuttgart, the introduction of Victoria Block, all while coming off of a playoff defeat to none other than LAFC. This season was supposed to be a comeback for the ages. It even only took us 13 minutes into opening day to score a Goal of the Year contender. The year was looking up for sure.

However, after said Goal of the Year contender only brought us to a 1-1 draw in Houston and Victoria Block’s debut yielded a 1-0 defeat to a lackluster Vancouver side, the reality of what 2020 was to be in terms of results was becoming scarily clear. After that game came a brief suspension of play for some virus that quickly became a four months hiatus over a deadly pandemic. Worse yet, in the wake of protests over the death of George Floyd, Tea Katai, wife of Aleksandar, made racist remarks about the protests and the Galaxy rightfully chose to release Aleksandar Katai to free agency. The season was definitely not looking the way most Galaxy fans had envisioned it looking in February.

Finally though in July we were set to resume play in Orlando for the MLS is Back Tournament! Alongside us in Group F was to be Houston, LAFC, and Portland. It was going to be a group of familiar foe. After a 2-1 defeat to Portland a win against LAFC was likely necessary for advancement, after leading twice in the first half it would seem that we were going to get what we were looking for, yet instead, we completely collapsed in the second half and ended up losing 6-2. In what was essentially a regular season game with no bigger meaning due to our almost certain elimination from MLS is Back we salvaged a late draw by a score of 1-1 against the Dynamo. We now sat 0-2-3 with just two points as we returned to LA to finish the season.

After a shock 2-0 victory at Banc of California Stadium against LAFC the season looked like it might just turn in our favor. Then, the run continued, 3-2 over Portland, 3-2 over San Jose, 3-0 over LAFC, we were finally back! The problem though, was what came next 0-0 against San Jose, 2-0 defeat to Colorado, 2-0 defeat to RSL, 3-1 defeat to the Sounders, 2-1 defeat to San Jose, 6-3 defeat to Portland, and worst of all – 4-0 defeat to San Jose. Losing 4-0 to San Jose was hitting rock bottom. We have historically ran the California soccer scene and still do. So, to get ran over 4-0 in our own stadium by our long term rival who we have historically torn apart was the ultimate slap in the face. The most common nickname for Galaxy fans to call San Jose is Smurfs or Smurfquakes – because they have always been the smaller team in the rivalry. I would argue that not just this year, but all time, a 4-0 defeat at home to the Earthquakes is the worst individual result in Galaxy history. Yet, when you hit rock bottom you can only go up.

And go up we did! Following the home thrashing we suffered to the side from Northern California we hosted the Vancouver Whitecaps and finally eked out a win with a 90th minute winner from Kai Koreniuk to make it 1-0. Still, from there we went on to lose 2-0 to LAFC and 5-2 to the Timbers which saw the rightful sacking of Guillermo Barros Schelotto.

The interim appointment of Dom Kinnear did create a brief upturn in form as we then downed Real Salt Lake 2-1 and were on the verge of victory against Seattle before a very late equalizer denied us the three points. Sadly, the season ended the way it went for most of the year and we were killed 3-0 by the Whitecaps to draw a close on 2020.

Of course, a 6-4-12 record is a hard thing to draw positives from, but I will try. Cristian Pavón proved himself to be a truly top class player in Major League Soccer, Julian Araujo made it clear that he is one of the top prospects in the league, Nick Depuy showed well at center-back, young players as a whole got loads of minutes on the field, Sebastian Lletget had maybe his best ever season for the Galaxy, and Perry Kitchen improved greatly from 2019. These are all truly good things and it does go to show that there are building blocks to a good team within the squad currently, but we have a lot of issues to workout first.

Sadly, I do not have the time to get into all the details of our flaws currently. For that reason I will just focus on the most notable issues. These include: a hole at left-back, a lack of a leading center-back, Jona’s injury problems, a hole at right-wing, Chicharito’s underperformance, and limited salary space. If we don’t work these problems out then the positives I mentioned earlier will have nowhere to thrive. We tend to be fast to fixing attacking errors, so that does bring me some hope. However, we have struggled to fix our defensive woes in particular for years now, so unfortunately, I am unsure if we will manage to solve them before the start of the 2021 season.

As a whole the 2020 MLS season was one of disappointment for the Galaxy. We seemed to be destined for a great campaign. I even picked us to win MLS Cup! Was I being intentionally optimistic? Yes, but it should still say something that I even thought it was possible that we could go all the way. Then our great form in August and early September made us seem unstoppable! We managed to win four games on the bounce against teams who would all end up in the playoffs! Alas, we fell apart and ruined our season leaving all hope for this year in the dust. Well, onto next year I suppose. Let my final thoughts on this year be something brighter in the end of season awards.

Goal of the Year: Sebastian Lletget’s bicycle kick against LAFC

Performance of the Year (as a collective): 2-0 win at LAFC

Performance of the Year (player specific): Sebastian Lletget, 3-0 vs LAFC

Newcomer of the Year: Sacha Kljestan

Young Player of the Year: Julian Araujo

Defensive Player of the Year: Julian Araujo

MVP: Cristian Pavón