Why are the Galaxy the worst and one of the best teams in MLS?

The Galaxy are the worst team in Major League Soccer. That’s not subjective opinion, it’s objective fact. Just look at the MLS standings, where the Galaxy are dead last after Sunday’s 4-0 loss to the Seattle Sounders, a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the score would indicate.

But the Galaxy are also one of the four best teams in Major League Soccer. That, too, is not subjective opinion but objective fact because, after an unbeaten run through Leagues Cup group play, the Galaxy are one of just four MLS teams to advance to the tournament quarterfinals.

How can both things be true simultaneously? That’s a good question — and one that can be only be answered subjectively.

“It takes time for a group to come together and a team to find out who they are,” Galaxy general manager Will Kuntz offered. “We had to discover ourselves a little bit.”

That doesn’t really capture the depth of the Galaxy’s decline. The team had one of the most successful seasons in franchise history last year, matching the modern-era record for victories (19) and going unbeaten in 21 games at Dignity Health Sports Park en route to their sixth MLS Cup.

This season, they got off to the worst start ever for a reigning champion, going 16 games without a win while being outscored 36-13. Since May 31, however, the Galaxy are 5-3-4 in all competition, with two of the wins coming against Mexican clubs Tijuana and Santos Laguna, whom they outscored 9-2 in Leagues Cup matches.

In between there were no trades, no acquisitions and no major lineup or strategic changes. Nor are there likely to be any for the reason of the season; although there are 10 days left in the MLS summer transfer window, Kuntz said “I don’t foresee us doing anything.”

So it’s pretty much been the same players and will pretty much stay the same players. Only now they’re playing (slightly) better.

“The rosters are the same, but the minutes and who’s getting them have maybe changed a little bit. Our start of the season was more of an aberration than where we’re at now,” Kuntz said.

Defender Mauricio Cuevas, for example, started just two of the team’s first 24 MLS games, but he started two of the Leagues Cup games and contributed three assists. The Galaxy were winless in league play when forward Matheus Nascimento made his first start; with Nascimento scoring six goals, they’ve lost just four of 13 games in all competition since then. And winger Joseph Paintsil, who appeared lost early in the season, has found his form from a year ago, notching six goals and an assist in his last eight matches.

Still, Kuntz’s subjective analysis feels like a bit of a cop-out since the Galaxy returned 10 of the 14 players who appeared in last year’s MLS Cup final, a game midfielder Riqui Puig, the team’s most indispensable player, missed with injury.

But it’s not so much how many players left as it is where they played that matters, the GM said. Two of the three players he traded — Mark Delgado and Gastón Brugman — were midfielders. And with Puig yet to play this year, the Galaxy started the season missing three of their top five midfielders in terms of minutes played in 2024.

“The midfield is the heart of any team,” Kuntz said. “That’s not to say we haven’t had some players who underperformed or took longer to get to speed than we thought. But the midfield consistency also impacts guys. Everything’s sort of interrelated.”

Coach Greg Vanney agreed. His team’s decline, he said, can’t be blamed on one thing.

“There are a lot of things,” he said. “I don’t think we have a super deep group when it comes to a lot of games in a short period to match some of the physicality.

“We haven’t executed. We have given up goals soft. We’ve never been able to catch any sort of consistent sort of form and rhythm inside of the league and gotten results out of it and closed out games when we need to.”

And that’s just the short list.

The Galaxy’s tepid turnaround — “We’ve been a lot better over the last stretch,” Vanney said — hasn’t been nearly good enough to lift the team out of the deep, deep hole it dug in the first three months of the season since their 3-15-7 record has them buried at the bottom of the MLS table and their 52 goals allowed are most in the league.

Cruz Azul forward Carlos Rotondi and Galaxy forward Gabriel Pec fight for the ball during a Leagues Cup match on Aug. 3 in Carson.

(Eric Thayer / Associated Press)

Yet a win over Mexico’s Pachuca next week, at home, would leave the Galaxy a win away from a berth in next season’s CONCACAF Champions Cup and two victories away from raising the Leagues Cup, giving them a second major title in nine months.

And they have another chance at hardware in October’s Campeones Cup against Mexican champion Toluca, whom they could also face in the Leagues Cup final.

“It is important to compete for trophies, right?” Kuntz asked. “The other thing you’ve see in this tournament is a bit of a fresh start for us. And guys kind of embrace that. It’s like this is what you’d see if the MLS season started today. This is kind of where we’d be.”

Where they are is last. Winning a trophy while finishing at the bottom of the MLS standings has been done before; in 2013, DC United set an MLS record for fewest wins in a season with three and broke the record for fewest points in a 34-game season with 16.

“Hey, you can still qualify for Champions [Cup]. Pretty incredible,” Kuntz said. “You need to be a goldfish, right? Have a short memory. It’s important that you not dwell on what’s already passed.

“Because the most important stretch is what comes next.”

That’s not subjective opinion. It’s objective fact.

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.