Los Angeles Galaxy is the definition of an old school Major League Soccer club, all the way down to bringing back a head coach that led the team in the 1990s and splurging on high-priced, end-of-their-career stars.
The Galaxy can also be a lot of fun, and score a lot of goals. Since facing Portland’s superdefense on June 2nd, Zlatan and friends have scored fewer than three goals in MLS play exactly once. Sigi Schmid’s front five is as dangerous as any the Union will face this season, but the two-way play of Ashley Cole supporting those attackers will be missing on Saturday due to a second half red card against New England last match. Cole has quietly been a key part of the Galaxy’s recent success, and the team will struggle to adapt without his presence on the left wing.
Of course, Cole remains, as all do, a member of the supporting cast around Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.
The big Swede has eleven (!) club season titles to his name and has scored 330 club goals in 531 matches. That would be incredible for a lower league player stomping their way through inferior competition, but for someone at the biggest clubs in the world, it’s redonkulous. Zlatan can score goals with his head, both feet, flying in the air, from 25 yards out with an overhead kick… you name it.
Since entering MLS, Ibra has gone full Thanos, casually tossing aside defenses while climbing to the top bracket of the league’s attackers. Through just over 1000 minutes, the man who calls himself a god is averaging over a goal per 96 minutes, and with penalties out of the equation he’s keeping pace with Josef Martinez for Expected Goals as well. Excluding penalties, Ibra is also the only player over 800 minutes averaging greater than two shots on target per match. He’s just a giant solar system of talent circling around a black hole of ego.
The puzzle of the Galaxy, though, is how to keep the rest of their attacking talent involved. Ola Kamara has played on the wing, while Romain Alessandrini, Sebastian Lletget, and Giovani Dos Santos have been shuffled around the formation in a search for balance. Chris Pontius has played a deep winger/wingback role at times across from Ashley Cole, with Jonathan Dos Santos searching for spaces to advance as a box-to-box midfielder within the chaotic mess of players that want to be on the ball. The one player that seems to have found a permanent home on the pitch — aside from the big Z, of course, who treats the world as his home — is Perry Kitchen. The former DC United holding midfielder shields a porous defense and plays simple passes to move the ball toward his attacking half.
The Galaxy’s road successes are oddly similar to the Union’s: They beat Chicago and Montreal before staging a wild and quite frankly ridiculous comeback win over New England last weekend. Without Ashley Cole to work the left, it will be interesting to see how Sigi Schmid’s team deal with the Union’s right-tilted attacks. But far more interesting will be the showdown between Mark McKenzie, Auston Trusty, and LA’s swashbuckling Swede.
