Offseason Outlook: Los Angeles FC
/By Mark Asher Goodman (@soccer_rabbi)
It’s hard to feel, well, anything really about how LAFC finished in 2019. You don’t exactly feel sorry for the MLS juggernaut that came to conquer all and lay claim to ‘greatest MLS team ever’, but didn’t. Carlos Vela and Bob Bradley seemed so cocksure and full of swagger that their inevitable comeuppance at the hands of the Seattle Sounders was almost satisfying for MLS neutrals. For LAFC fans, it would certainly be disappointing if they hadn’t be treated to so many other wonderful delights in the 2019 season. Ricky Bobby / Ron Burgundy / More Cowbell United earned Supporters Shield on the back of an outrageous record-setting 72 point season, and they did it with a record-shattering Goal Differential of +48. The previous mark of +41 had been set by the LA Galaxy way back in 1998. Their star player won the MVP award while breaking the goal scoring record, as Vela found the net an outrageous 34 times. And all that, in just their second year of existence. So if 3252 members are looking for tea and sympathy amongst other MLS fans, they ain’t gonna get it.
However, with their second-consecutive ‘dominant season followed surprising playoff departure’ in a row, it is easy to say that LAFC was ultimately disappointing in 2019. They aren’t quite ready to be cast as the MLS 3.0 version of the always-a-brides-mate New England Revolution: 24 seasons, 14 playoff appearances, five MLS finals, zero MLS Cups. But if they biff it again in 2020, you might start to think about them in that same rarified category of oh-so-close disappointment that you think of the Buffalo Bills and Susan Lucci.
Long story short, it doesn’t matter how fantastic this team was in 2019. They underachieved. Moves must be made.
Current Los Angeles Football Club Roster
Goalkeepers (1): Pablo Sisniega.
Defenders (6): Tristan Blackmon, Mohamed El-Munir, Diego Palacios, Eddie Segura, Danilo Silva, Walker Zimmerman.
Midfielders (4): Eduard Atuesta, Latif Blessing, Alejandro Guido, Mark-Anthony Kaye.
Forwards (7): Adama Diomande, Adrien Perez, Josh Pérez, Brian Rodriguez, Diego Rossi, Carlos Vela, Rodolfo Zelaya
Not on 2020 roster:
Lamar Batista, Dejan Jaković, Javier Perez, Peter-Lee Vassell, Steven Beitashour Jordan Harvey, Tyler Miller, Lee Nguyen.
Areas of Depth: Wings, Striker, Starting Midfield
Almost any soccer fan, even the most insufferable Euro snob or a septuagenarian Baby Boomer with dial-up internet (psssshhhhttttttt… buh-dong buh-dong ‘You’ve got mail!’) that’s only watched a few MLS games could tell you that LAFC is strong at the forward positions. All three of their Designated Players - Vela, Diego Rossi, and Brian Rodriguez - are forwards, and their results demonstrate that LAFC are getting their money’s worth. The team as a whole scored 85 goals as a team in 2019, most ever in MLS history, while getting an insane 50 goals from Vela and Rossi alone. Do we really need to bother with consulting advanced metrics in order to make the case that Vela was eye-poppingly exceptional? Not really, but let’s do it for the heck of it. Vela had an xG of 25.69, and over-performed that in goal-scoring (G - xG) by +8.31. In the nine years that ASA has compiled xG numbers, no player has even come close to that level of exceeding expectation, suggesting he may have been a bit fortunate - the next best season was 2015 Robbie Keane, who had a +7.48 for the LA Galaxy that year. Vela in 2019 was out-of-this-world good. And it’s very likely he regresses in 2020 due to age or just luck. But even with a modest decline, the dude is still likely to be the Vegas-favorite for MVP on opening day.
This frontline was unstoppable, and that’s before you even consider that midseason pick-up Brian Rodriguez played just seven games in 2019 and is just 19 years-old. If he starts clicking with Rossi and Vela in 2020, this could be the MLS equivalent of 2016-17 FC Barcelona’s “MSN” (Messi-Suarez-Neymar); with RVR dipping and weaving and dishing and dribbling and interchanging and destroying every defender in the Western Conference. (Rubs hands together greedily.)
They also have Adama Diomande, a game-changing center forward, coming off the bench. They shipped Christian Ramirez to Houston mid-summer for a variety of reasons, but I think the main one was they just didn’t need him. So the starters, and even the first-off-the-bench option, are all set for next year.
Depth at forward, though, could be called a minor question: backup wingers Adrien Perez, Josh Perez, and Rodolfo Zelaya combined for all of 778 minutes in 2019, and Zelaya was lent to USL’s Las Vegas club in order to let him get some run. It would not shock me if LAFC shipped one of those onward in order to make space for another player with greater potential.
Behind them is an exceedingly competent midfield that does the things it needs to do - get the ball up to the forwards, protect possession, muck up the midfield in defense - while not getting much limelight. Mark-Anthony Kaye, Eduard Atuesta and Latif Blessing were all praiseworthy in 2019 for what they contributed. All three were top-10 MLS players in terms of their xG chain production, with Atuesta leading the league in Expected Buildup (xB) at 32.9. Sure, you can argue that Vela and Rossi creating so many quality chances skews those numbers beyond recognition. But you can’t argue with the fact that Atuesta delivered the final ball or the pass-before-the-pass with devastating efficiency and regularity. The only starting player in MLS who was involved in the buildup at a higher percentage than Atuesta’s 25.5% (AKA Team Chain%) was Michael Bradley, who was involved in 28.2% of his team’s possessions.
In short, if LAFC just roll out the same starting six they finished 2019 with, and every one of those six stays healthy and contributes 2000+ minutes, they’ll be more than fine.
Areas of Need: Fullback, Bench Midfield, A DP?
Manager Bob Bradley and GM John Thorrington decided to let go of both of the team’s regular starting fullbacks, Jordan Harvey and Steven Beitashour, at the conclusion of 2019. Those are totally logical moves. Harvey turns 36 years old in January, while Beitashour turns 33 in February; even if they’ve been exceedingly good fullbacks in MLS for a long time, it is probably time to turn the page. LA acquired Mohammed El-Munir midseason in a deal swapping fullbacks that sent former 1st overall SuperDraft pick Joao Moutinho over to Orlando City. The Black and Gold signed left back Diego Palacios midsummer as well. Palacios is 20 years old and an Ecuadorian international, while El-Munir is in his prime at 27 years old. It looks like they’ll turn the position over to one of those two. The right back position is less clear. Tristan Blackmon dabbled at both right back and center back in 2019 - nine starts at RB, eight starts at CB, 1558 minutes in total. Does Bob think he’s good enough to be a starter full time at RB? I don’t think so, and there aren’t any backups at this spot, either. This is where I would expect LAFC to get a prime international player, if they’ve got the TAM to do it.
After jettisoning Andre Horta mid-year and letting go of a declining Lee Nguyen to end the year, LAFC are gonna need some bodies in midfield to soak up some minutes, or maybe even a youngster to emerge and challenge the very-excellent Kaye and Blessing for a starting spot. Bradley hasn’t really employed a pure defensive midfielder in the two years he’s been at the helm of LAFC, so expect him to try and find good two-way guys if he can. I think the available Haris Medunjanin, a pocket-passing regista, might be ok here, but he’s not covering that much ground anymore, and Bob won’t like that. Sacha Kljestan and Federico Higuain are on the market and were once good options here, but not so much anymore.
Bob probably wants a guy that plays the midfield a lot like his very own flesh and blood, Michael Bradley. And lo-and-behold, Michael happens to be an MLS free agent. Do father and son want to team up again, like they did when Bob was the skipper of the USMNT from 2006 to 2011? Or is working for your dad no fun? Or is Mikey simply too old to be the guy that can help bring an MLS Cup to Exposition Park? It wouldn’t make a ton of sense to replace 33-year-old Nguyen with 32-year-old Bradley, except that Bradley defends and runs more than Nguyen ever did. The perfect player for LAFC To get would be an inexpensive, in-his-prime, role-playing number eight for LAFC. That would mean that they either invent a time machine and go back to get 2014 Michael Bradley, or find his modern-day equivalent, perhaps in the Netherlands or France or Italy. Regarding the time travel idea, maybe I’ve been watching too many Marvel movies as of late.
LAFC haven’t resigned Tyler Miller at GK, but are in negotiations. He’s a solid keeper and they ought to hang onto him. But maybe they may think backup Pablo Sisniega, recently of Real Sociedad, can step in between the pipes. LAFC also need to add another centerback to the squad, although Eddie Segura and Walker Zimmerman were outstanding.
Lastly, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing in the world for LAFC to swing for the fences by trying to get another big DP - probably at midfield, but possibly a centerback or fullback. Vela’s contract is too big to buy down. But both Rodriguez and Rossi earn about $1 million a year. Either one of them could be bought down under the cap if Thorrington can scrape together about $500K in TAM, which would open up that third DP slot. A TAM-level contract that’s heavily back-loaded to evolve into a DP deal in year two might work also - that’s how the LA Galaxy magically squeezed Robbie Keene, Steven Gerrard, Giovani Dos Santos, Ashley Cole AND Nigel de Jong on the roster at the same time.
Maybe I sound crazy. Maybe LAFC are confident that they’ve got what they need to succeed in 2020, and that getting bumped off in the semi-finals is just the kind of thing that happens when luck runs out. But I wouldn’t put it past a team owned by three billionaires, an NBA All-Star, the greatest woman’s soccer player in US history, and one of the top box office grossing comedians in Hollywood to say to themselves “this team can achieve more: let’s go make it happen.”