LA Galaxy head coach Sigi Schmid | USA Today Sports
The Offseason So Far: They got a starting 'keeper, a center back who can also play left back, and a right back who can also play center back. And none of them were/are over 30! It really does feel like the dawn of a new era.
More than who's arrived thus far, it's really about who's departed. Sigi Schmid appears to be trying to hit the "undo" button on a lot of what happened last year, but there are just so many guys on this roster with long-term, big-money contracts that it looks pretty hard to do much beyond add non-glamor pieces and hope that the Dos Santos brothers play up to their talent. Neither came anywhere close to that last year.
So just sit tight and expect more defenders, another goalkeeper, and another defensive midfielder. Servando Carrasco, who has history with Schmid, was a good snag in the Re-Entry Draft and will happily do the dirty work as a back-up No. 6 behind LA's glut of No. 8s. But it's Perry Kitchen, who has had a Very Bad Time™ in Europe, that's reportedly the top target for the spot.
Kitchen would be a nice fit, but there are a couple of complications:
- He's still under contract with Randers, which might mean a fee (that could push his acquisition toward DP-level)
- D.C. still control Kitchen's MLS rights, and they will gouge LA for every possible cent of GAM/TAM in order to trade said rights, which is exactly what they should do (remember how much GAM/TAM LA got from D.C. for the rights to Paul Arriola? Yeah)
The elephant in the room is, of course, Zardes. Schmid straight-up said the team was missing a center forward last year, which doesn't bode well for the Galaxy Homegrown's long-term prospects at that spot. And given the glut of talent on the wings ...
Pieces are going to have to move for the Galaxy in the coming months. Have to.
JAN. 2 UPDATE:They brought back Ashley Cole and Baggio Husidic, which they probably needed to do even if Cole's return uncomfortably squishes their available international slots – especially since it seems like Hungarian international center back Adam Lang will be joining from Ligue 1's Dijon.
That would be good work from the Galaxy who, first and foremost, needed to solidify their central defense and goalkeeping situations this offseason. If this team achieves actual stability at the back then their cadre of talented midfielders should have a better platform to launch attacks from (in theory, anyway).
The Zardes issue still looms and my guess is it will continue to do so. I just can't imagine him having any trade value at this point.
JAN. 24 UPDATE: Lang's not joining them, but Kitchen is. And so is Ola Kamara in a trade for Zardes and TAM, and Sigi managed to pull that off without trading away the No. 2 draft pick, which he used on center back Tomas Hilliard-Arce – the guy who just captained Stanford to three straight titles.
I'm not with Bobby Warshaw, who thinks that LA could/should contend for MLS Cup (I'm not with him yet, anyway), but this is better than just "good":
The Galaxy got younger and got deeper and got proven-er at a lot of spots. Hilliard-Arce could end up starting in that backline, or being the top sub. Ema Boateng and Bradford Jamieson IV both played better under Schmid than they had under Curt Onalfo; Hugo Arellano, who has grown up and beefed up, could make a leap this year as he turns 20. And there are more moves to come.
I still worry about this group's chance creation a little bit – there's not a pure playmaker on the roster, and you're nuts if you think that's not going to eat into Kamara's goal total. But Schmid's done good work rebuilding a ship that was sinking and creating a roster that should spend more time being "good" than "bad."
His long-term plan, though, has to be to rebuild an academy which has earned a reputation as the boulevard of broken dreams. Other than Mexico City there is no richer collection of youth talent in North American than Southern California, and somehow the Galaxy have not created a single fulltime contributor, from stem-to-stern, out of their Homegrown system. It's unconscionable.
There's a problem either with the entrance into the academy, the exit into the first team, or with the path itself. No one who's been in Carson (and they've all been there a while) has made a dent. The very best thing Schmid could do for his legacy – both with the club he's already led to a Cup/Shield double, and with US soccer – is to fix that.
Because if the Galaxy ever get that academy up and running to, say, RSL's standards, they will literally never lack for talent again, and they will make tens-of-millions in transfer fees.
