Commentary: What’s wrong with the galaxy? Fanbase grows stationary with Front Office

Alex Kozela has been a Galaxy fan since childhood, so the team’s home game has always been a spring ritual, a source of hope and anticipation for him.

No longer.

As the team returned to Dignity Health Sports Park for the first time in five months on Saturday, Kozela fought through the afternoon traffic, found a parking spot and made his way to the stadium entrance as usual. Only this time he didn’t go in. Instead, he stood outside the stadium’s main gate with a group of fans and season ticket holders to protest the team’s direction.

“The club has lost sight of what really matters to the fans and the fans and the community,” said Kozela. “We’re here to support the team and give our money to the organization because we love this club. I’ve loved it since I was a kid.”

It’s a love, he said, unrequited.

“There’s a pause,” he said. “The results on the field were not good. But neither are the results from the field. What is the vision? What is the plan for the next five years? What is the identity of the LA Galaxy?

“I would like to know from above. Because we haven’t had it for a long time.”

It’s no secret that the Galaxy is lost. The team has lost more games than won in the past six seasons and has not played for an MLS Cup since 2014. So when the club points to their record of five league and nine cup finals, it feels more like a history lesson than a contemporary experience.

Even Greg Vanney, who played in the first-team trophy-winning club in 1998, admitted that when he returned to management two years ago he was hired “to get this club back to where people expect it”.

This journey turned out to be longer and more difficult than expected.

Vanney, the fifth manager in seven seasons, has led the Galaxy to back-to-back wins and a playoff berth since 2021, but Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Vancouver has left the team without a win in three games this season , his worst start. in 13 years.

The galaxy (0-1-2) is getting better and better. Players named Javier “Chicharito” Hernández as the team’s captain and top scorer for the past two seasons, and winger Douglas Costa missed the first three games through injury, while Brazilian right-back Lucas Calegari came on as a replacement for two-time MLS star Julián Araujo . still not a minute played. At the same time, the reported deal for Argentina left-back Julián Aude has not yet been finalized and centre-back Séga Coulibaly is busy with personal matters in France.

“We are going through our phase of some big injuries with some guys, we are still trying to get through the doors and get integrated into the line-up,” said Vanney. “It’s a process of getting better in every game and scoring points along the way.”

With nine of the Western Conference’s 14 teams qualifying for the playoffs, they should be there if the Galaxy can just miss a mirror this fall. And at full strength, the team is talented enough to have a long run once they get there.

But performance on the field is perhaps the simplest thing the Galaxy has to solve. It could be more difficult to reconnect the club with its most loyal supporters.

The team’s four main fan groups said they would boycott home games until the Galaxy makes some front-office changes, including the sacking of club chairman Chris Klein, who was given a multi-year contract extension this winter despite his Premier League suspension. Football, Penalty for breaking budget and team guidelines by the team during the 2019 season.

It is far too early to assess the effects of the boycott. Saturday’s protest drew just 250 to 300 people, according to a LA County Sheriff’s Department sergeant, while stadium attendance was announced at 23,112, the fourth-highest in MLS over the past weekend.

However, that count was based on the tickets distributed rather than the actual number of turnstiles, a number the team did not disclose. (The team also disputed police estimates of the number of protesters.) In any event, it was the smallest attendance at a Galaxy Home Opener since 2013, and the Victoria Block, the usually rambunctious fan area in the North Stand, was largely empty – so much so that Cozmo, the furry blue mascot of the Galaxy, spent much of the game on billboards behind the endline to break the silence.

“Despite the boycott, the stadium looked very busy,” said Cary Hall, a longtime season ticket holder. “The audience was captivated, it seemed. What was missing was the vocals and the drums.”

AEG, Galaxy’s parent company, appears willing to await the boycott, recognizing that firing Klein would be unwise for a number of reasons. First, because it would be interpreted as giving in to fan demands, and second, because Klein’s presidency coincided with the franchise’s slide from perennial champion to mediocrity. ticket revenue.

That doesn’t mean AEG isn’t worried. The Galaxy has long prided itself on being the league’s flagship franchise, but that mantle has recently passed to LAFC, the team’s neighborhood rivals, who won an MLS Cup and two Supporters in a four-year streak that saw the Galaxy Shields win . only two playoff games.

“I work in youth football and literally every kid will tell you who the LA football team is,” said Kozela. “They’ll say LAFC.”

If the Galaxy can’t beat LAFC, they can at least copy the team and they recently lured Will Kuntz, senior vice president of football operations and assistant general manager away from LAFC. Kuntz, who is highly regarded in MLS circles, said his role at Galaxy is a work in progress, although he could ultimately serve as a firewall between the president and the team’s football team. This would allow Klein to grow sales while absolving him of responsibility — or blame — for what happens in the field.

The LAFC front office, which has co-presidents, is similarly set up with Larry Freedman for business operations and John Thorrington for sporting decisions.

Whether this is another attempt to rearrange the deckchairs on Titanic or something that will restore the galaxy’s tarnished reputation remains to be seen. Anyway, the resistance already seems to be breaking.

“They have a credibility problem,” said John, a longtime fan who only gave his first name, defiantly as he stood among the supporters waving banners and calling for Klein’s resignation. “He has to go. He’s the problem.”

But when the protest ended and banners were carried away, John said he intended to take his usual place in the stadium and cheer for the team, just like in the good old days.