Commentary: Galaxy’s new executives under pressure to fix dysfunctional front office
It was a bad week for the Galaxy, one that began with their president writing an open letter to season-ticket holders promising to resign if the team didn’t advance in the playoffs followed, a day later, by the hiring of a chief content officer who has been tasked with rebuilding the brand for a club that, he said, has “lost its way.â€
Things aren’t looking much better on the field, where the Galaxy, winless after six games, are off to their worst start ever heading into Sunday’s El Tráfico showdown against unbeaten LAFC.
The Galaxy are off to their worse start in franchise history. It’s clear a deep and sweeping leadership change is necessary to get back on track.
Yet for Will Kuntz, who left LAFC’s front office after six years to join the Galaxy a month ago as senior vice president of player personnel, hitting rock bottom means there’s only one way for his new club to go.
“It’s an incredible opportunity. It’s a great project,†he said. “People look at it as maybe us being in a down moment or the stock is down. But the potential here is massive.â€
Kuntz, 39, has never worked for a losing team, beginning his career as a summer intern with the New York Yankees, where he won a World Series and became director of pro scouting, before joining a fledgling LAFC to help turn that team into an MLS champion as assistant general manager. That resume is what made him attractive to the Galaxy, who are in the deepest dive in franchise history, having lost more games than they’ve won since their last MLS Cup appearance in 2014.
That pedigree also brings pressure to perform. The Galaxy front office has been fighting dysfunction for years, which explains both the recent decline and decision to add Kuntz and Will Misselbrook, the new content officer. If the Galaxy are to turn things around, both on and off the field, it will be the two Wills who will have to show the way.
Kuntz pushes back on that notion.
“I haven’t seen anybody saying I’m the savior,†he said. “I’m coming in to be added to something that is moving in a very positive direction. To be honest, that’s part of the appeal of this right? I didn’t come in and say, ‘Hey, this is a complete tear down.’ There’s a lot of really good pieces here.â€
Maybe. But at the same time Kuntz hopes to use his influence to challenge the traditional way the Galaxy have constructed their rosters. Beginning with its first major signing, Mexican national team goalkeeper Jorge Campos, the team has always built around big-name international stars, some of whom have been more effective at moving merchandise than winning games.
MLS has changed, however, and the league’s most successful clubs — Seattle, Atlanta, Philadelphia, LAFC — have succeeded largely because of young, unheralded players from South America and the Caribbean.
“If you look at the direction the league is going, it’s pretty evident the common denominators that successful teams exhibit,†he said. “It’s important for a lot of different reasons to create roster/budget efficiencies. There are advantages to having young designated players.
“The fact that we play during the summer, the fact that our league is very physical lends itself to young players being productive. It just is prudent for any club to sort of look and see where the league is heading and move accordingly.â€
LAFC’s Aaron Long and Kelly Acosta will play in this weekend’s El Tráfico with the Galaxy before reporting to USMNT for a friendly against Mexico.
Kuntz’s new team could definitely benefit from a new direction since no club has fewer wins or fewer points, and only one team has fewer goals than the Galaxy (0-3-3), who have been shut out in half of their games this season. LAFC (4-0-2), meanwhile, hasn’t given up a goal in its last four games in all competitions.
That’s not the end of the bad news for the Galaxy. The team’s main supporters’ groups are boycotting home games over the re-signing of president Chris Klein to a multiyear contract last winter, which means Dignity Health Sports Park could be a sea of black and gold for Sunday’s Southern California derby. Help is not on the way since the Galaxy are banned from signing any international players once the primary transfer window closes later this month, part of a series of penalties levied against Klein and the team for violating MLS salary rules.
The team hit bottom in its last game, a 3-0 loss in Houston, when two veteran players, Douglas Costa and MartÃn Cáceres, lost their composure and drew red cards, leaving them ineligible for Sunday’s match. Even Greg Vanney, the team’s normally unflappable coach, gave in to frustration when speaking with reporters Thursday.
“For me, it’s total bull—. People can have their opinions, they’re allowed to their opinions. It’s noise. We understand it’s us against whoever wants to talk s— about us,†he said at the start of a 4½-minute diatribe in which he suggested injuries, back luck and a schedule that saw his team play four of its first six games on the road were partly responsible for the bad start.
“There have been other teams in MLS who have had just as bad of a start and gone on to win a championship in our league,†he continued. “We have incredible belief. It’s just about momentum. It’s about time, it’s about execution. It’s about getting our group whole and it’s about moving forward and not allowing anything else to disrupt that process from taking place.â€
A few things might be trending in the Galaxy’s favor this weekend. The team has never lost to LAFC at home, for example, and it has its captain, Javier “Chicharito†Hernández, the team’s leading scorer the last two seasons, back from injury. The Galaxy haven’t won a game without Hernández since Aug. 14, 2021.
Barring a turnaround, Everton seems destined to play its final season at historic Goodison Park in the Championship division, and fans aren’t happy.
History gives the Galaxy reason to hope: Sunday’s game will be the second since 2014 in which a winless MLS team has faced an unbeaten one this late in the schedule. The last time it happened, seven weeks into the 2019 season, an unbeaten LAFC team lost on the road to winless Vancouver.
With the way the season has started for the Galaxy, hope is about all they have. Yet Kuntz, like Vanney, says he believes that moment will pass and that brighter days are ahead.
“The pressure, we feel it,†he said. “It’s within the group, it’s within the coaching staff. And that’s because the results haven’t been up to the standard that we’ve set.
“We just need to keep on grinding and the results will come.â€
