by @harrison_crow

2019 REVIEW

In my view, the difference between the 2018 LA Galaxy and 2019 LA Galaxy was their willingness to come to terms with their direct style of play, their dependency upon their benevolent god Zlatan, and their need to score multiple goals to win games

No longer is there a pretentious and almost gaudy feel to the tactics employed in Carson. This is a team with fewer comparative luxuries than in past years to do something amazing all leading to unflappable success and glory. Now, there is only Zuul--errr Zlatan. Oh and Pavon. But it’s been good enough to buy them a lottery ticket for their sixth MLS Cup.

When Guillermo Barros Schelotto (GBS) arrived this off-season there was a hope that he would restore the Galaxy back to their rightful place upon the Western Conference throne. His ability as a tactician and reputation as someone who could deal with big personalities under duress would be a huge asset to a team needing to restore order. While he’s brought balance, it’s been inside a storm of chaos. Instead of a return to fun and exciting soccer, it’s been a more lustful indulgence in a pragmatic style of play.

Romain Alessandrini’s knee surgery back in April doused the possibility of a ‘Plan B’ developing and instead has driven GBS straight to his boom or bust, longball, cross happy, make Harrison have anxiety approach. Despite its chaotic nature it’s largely worked out about as well as it could have with Zlatan scoring 52% of the team’s total goals.

While Zlatan has kept his end of the Faustian pact, the defense has been poor, causing nearly as many problems as it has the last two seasons. They’ve survived by outscoring opponents more rather than shutting them out. In the second half of the season alone the team allowed 37 goals. This was the fourth worst in the league behind CIN, SKC and HOU. These are not teams that you wish to be associated with when you have MLS Cup aspirations.

The truth is that right now the LA Galaxy are on life support. The second-half of the campaign saw them struggle, earning only 20 points out of 17 games with an -0.16 average expected goal difference. If allowing lots of goals hurt, it’s made all the more worse knowing their scoring also tailed off.

Stumbling into the playoffs, they’ve managed to get by largely due to the fact that they had a quietly magnificent first half and won a couple of very key games when needed in September (the Montreal and RSL games were specifically huge from a probability and playoff security perspective).

They’re not a team without question marks but this isn’t about the regular season. It’s the ability to play in four extremely tense and compelling knockout matches. We can only wait and see what LA Galaxy team shows up.

TEAM STATISTICS

Possession: 49.9% (11th in MLS)

Passes Per Game: 449.5 (12th in MLS)

xGoals For: 41.2 (3rd in MLS)

xGoals Against: 39.6 (20th in MLS)

While Zlatan has delivered the haymakers it has been Jonathan dos Santos who subtly became the Captain, leader, and difference maker between the lines that the team has sorely needed. He’s been the maestro behind the scenes to the star soloist, Zlatan, pulling strings and orchestrating the team’s possession and transition game. The team leader in possession chains (1,091), teamchain% (25.4) and expected buildup 26.4 xG he ranks 14th, 6th and 5th respectively in all of MLS. He’s been the true fulcrum for this attack.

JDS hasn’t had to do it alone though. He’s been deployed with Sebastian Lletget (10.7% of team touches) and Joe Corona (12.6% of team touches) as a triumvirate of central midfielders helping to provide cover to the defensive and each carrying responsibility for delivering their possession payload and orchestrating new ways of getting the ball to Zlatan.

Despite obvious and rather overt tactical preferences, the trio is still finding opportunities out wide for those sending in crosses. Their assistance helped his team ride the rough seas of statistical anarchy while driving a suicidal amount (721) crosses from open play, second only to Portland.

Amazingly enough, Zlatan won an outrageous 155 of 236 (66%) aerial duels and turned 35 crosses into shots, good for 5.72 expected goals alone. If you need perspective on this xG tally, by itself, it is more than any other Galaxy player had from open play with the exception of Uriel Antuna (7.5 xG from open play).