Greg Vanney won an MLS Cup in 2024. His Galaxy have won 14 league games and lost 27 since. That's not a slump — that's a collapse, and it's the context behind everything the club has done this summer.
With 10 games left in the regular season, LA sit 12th in a 15-team Western Conference, two points below the playoff line. General manager Will Kuntz has responded by assembling a four-man rescue squad made up of players who, as recently as late July, had serious doubts about whether their careers still had legs.
The Forgotten Four
Sergi Roberto was sitting at home in southern Spain, untrained for over three months and without a club. Hirving "Chucky" Lozano — on the fourth-largest contract in MLS — was being paid by San Diego FC specifically not to play following a fallout with coach Mikey Varas. Robert Taylor had made one regular-season start in two seasons at Austin FC. Kyogo Furuhashi had been released by Birmingham City. None of these were players arriving in their prime, with leverage, on their terms.
That's exactly why Kuntz could get them.
Taylor arrived first in mid-July and already looks like the most ready, scoring his first goal in 14 months in the win over New England. He feels settled. Roberto, the former Barcelona captain, is a different story — still living out of a suitcase, his wife and four kids back in Spain, and yet to complete a full 90 minutes since October 2024. He has played 91 minutes across two Galaxy games. The talent is obvious. The fitness question is real.
Lozano's loan runs only until December, with a permanent option available. Taylor has a club option for next season. Furuhashi is the most secure — five years — while Roberto is signed through 2028. That mix of permanence and uncertainty makes squad building trickier, but Kuntz also added Argentine midfielder Pablo Ruiz (acquired from Real Salt Lake for $400,000 in allocation money) and Brazilian defender Lucas Calegari, back at the club after 22 appearances in 2023, once his visa clears.
What the next 10 games actually mean
The Galaxy open this run at Vancouver, who lead the Western Conference. It's a brutal start to what is essentially a 10-game audition for everyone involved — players, coach, and front office alike.
Vanney is under no illusions about the stakes. If the Galaxy miss the playoffs for the fifth time in seven seasons, his job is in genuine danger. The squad is deeper now than it was in July, but depth assembled in August doesn't guarantee chemistry in October. Roberto still isn't fully match fit. The team has won twice in their last 10 games. The conference table doesn't lie.
"Find a rhythm and get momentum," Vanney said. "That's one of the big things in this league that can help carry you from match to match."
The problem is they need to find that rhythm against a schedule that won't wait for them. Galaxy's odds of reaching the playoffs are functional, not comfortable — every dropped point from here makes the math uglier. If Roberto hits form, Lozano rediscovers his best, and Taylor keeps contributing, this team has enough quality to make a run. That's a lot of ifs stacked in a short window.
"There's not a lot of time," Kuntz said. "But there's a lot of talent."
He's right on both counts.
