Season Previews: Austin, LA Galaxy, Chicago
/A Sheep in Wolff’s Clothing
2023 Disasterclass
Austin FC's 2023 season was a stark departure from their 2022 success, marred by injury woes and underperforming signings from the departed and controversial Claudio Reyna. The defensive line sorely missed Ruben Gabrielsen as the injury bug hit the backline, forcing Alex Ring into an impromptu center back role for a majority of the season. The attacking front struggled as well, with Emiliano Rigoni and Gyasi Zardes often having underwhelming performances. On the brighter side of things, Jon Gallagher’s early season nose for the net earned him an All-Star selection, and Brad Stuver continued to be a shot-stopping savant.
The departure of several starters since this past mid-season—including Diego Fagúndez, Nick Lima, Maximiliano Urruti—hint at new club sporting director Rodolfo Borrell’s vision for a reshaped squad.
Offseason Turnover
To shore up the backline, Borrell has gone out and signed Brazilian defender Guilherme Biro. He’ll also be relying on vets Matt Hedges and Hector Jimenez to plug any gaps, and Zan Kolmanič and Leo Väisänen to return to form after injuries took them down for large chunks of last season.
Offensively, Jáder Obrian's arrival from FC Dallas and Diego Rubio from the Colorado Rapids are expected to revitalize the midfield and attack. If they can complement the chemistry that Sebastian Driussi, Danny Pereira, and Owen Wolff built last season, the offense could regain some of its 2022 form. If they struggle, Borrell could look for mid-season transfers to mix
2023 Stats
Austin's defensive frailties were glaring, ranking worst in tackle win percentage and near the bottom of the league in interceptions and errors leading to shots. On the offensive end, ”Wolff ball” struggled to translate possession into effective attacking plays. The lack of through balls (second fewest in the league) and the reliance on crosses (third most) left a lot to be desired. Add in a huge reliance on Sebastien Driussi, and Austin had to turn to some unconventional methods to generate some scoring chances.
To make up for the lack of open-play offense, Lima frequently catapulted throw-ins into the box, making Austin the league leader in “attacking” throw-ins. This is one of the few really smart things Austin have done, those long throws? About twice as valuable as throw-in outside of the box.
But with Lima gone, Austin will have to look to other tactics to vary their offensive profile. Perhaps Rory Delap is still knocking about somewhere?
Rigoni Redemption?
Emiliano Rigoni continued to play below expectations in his first full season with Austin, after being brought in as a DP in the summer of 2022. ASA shows that he completed about 3.5 fewer passes per 100 than expected, even when accounting for the difficulty of those passes, putting him in the bottom 10% of all players last season.
After not scoring his first goal till the 9th game of the season, and then taking another 12 games before scoring his second, his goal-scoring output ended up about even with the league-average winger. Austin will need consistent attacking contributors other than Driussi if they hope to contend for the playoffs.
What’s in store for 2024?
It might be easy to think that Austin FC can bounce back and once again compete for the top spot in the Western Conference like they did in 2022. But there hasn’t been enough improvement on the roster to support that belief. In reality, this year is a rebuilding year, where the most fans should hope for is sneaking into the playoffs and a Cinderella run.
Peter Piper Picked a Pec of Pickled Prospects
What is there to say about the Galaxy in 2023? Well, there’s a lot, and most of it isn’t about soccer. In the off-season proceeding last year, there was enormous unrest in the fan base over the contract extension given to then president, Chris Klein. And the then, here, is the key. What happened next is something we haven’t really seen in MLS history. Fans made it clear that they would not attend games until Chris Klein was out as president, and, despite the naysayers who said this tactic would never work, it eventually did with the exit of Chris Klein, the eventual exit of Jovan Kirovski, and a general reshuffling of the front office structure to make it more line with the more successful teams in the league: that being, a clear general manager in Will Kuntz whose job is separate, although very much in collaboration with, that of the coach. With this new structure and the reputation of Kuntz for being a master roster builder, the result of this protest is probably better than anyone could have hoped for.
The protests, did, however come at the cost of results. While players and coaches were faced with constant questions about the fan boycott and found themselves playing in sparsely filled stadiums without the usual singing, drums and flags, the Galaxy recorded just 6 points in the first 10 games of the season, which was the worst start in franchise history. Besides the turmoil between the team and its fans, the Galaxy were dealing with injuries to Chicharito (eventually being sidelined for the season), in addition to Douglas Costa, which was arguably not much of a loss at all.All of this aside, it's hard to put all of this on these two factors. The fans eventually returned to the stands, but the results weren't a lot better, with the Galaxy finishing second to last in the Western Conference.
In my opinion, roster construction was also partially to blame for what happened. In my preview for last season, I made the argument that Galaxy needed productive wingers to bring out the best in Puig, given how deep his touches generally are, and I was skeptical that Tyler Boyd and Douglas Costa could do that. I also pointed to the Galaxy’s continued faith in Jonathan Bond as an issue given his poor shot stopping numbers. Not to pat myself on the back, but I think both of these criticisms proved to be accurate, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this offseason has seen a clear focus on signing young, attacking wingers, or that the Galaxy have signed John McCarthy, with an open competition for the starting goalkeeper role. I believe these were obvious issues going into last season, and they are ones identified by Kuntz and his team as issues that need addressing.
Ouch.
So what next?
So what did Galaxy soccer look like last year, and how might these new changes change the team? It’s no secret that the heart-beat of the Galaxy is that midfield trio of Puig, Brugman, and Delgado, with little possession running through the wings, or in the attacking third, in proportion to the overall touches. Nearly half of all of the Galaxy’s touches last season (46%), came in the middle third of the field, with just a 23% share in the attacking third and 32% share in the defensive third.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with a team that likes to play in the center of the field, the obvious question becomes, how is that possession translated into creating danger in the final third, and I think this is where the Galaxy’s line-up failed them, with neither Costa nor Boyd, capable of being an elite connector between the lines. While the Galaxy offense was by no means, bad, ranking 6th in the league in xG per game, I believe this lack of a connector can be seen in the numbers, with the Galaxy ranking 8th last in the league in non-cross passes played into the box, and falling under the league average for the number of passes made from within the box.
In broad strokes, I think the numbers suggest that the Galaxy have a good offense that can be elevated to another level with more creative support from the wings. Which brings us to our offseason hunt for wingers. The Galaxy’s biggest offseason move came in the signing of Gabriel Pec, a 22 year old Brazillan winger from Vasco da Gama. From the data, Gabriel is what we at ASA call a “dribbly boi,” and the DAVIES model calls a “Direct Dribbler”.
Basically, the dude likes to take guys on. Besides that, Pec has shown to be a goal threat, and, if you watch them, they often come from the magic he creates in transition.
Possession vs Transition
While these are great stats, I do have a small concern. While the Galaxy need to be more dangerous in transition, the hallmark of Galaxy soccer in the Riqui Puig era has been possession soccer, which means, slow soccer. Last year, the average vertical distance of an LA Galaxy pass was 4.6 yards. This was the lowest in the league. With this possession style, you’d imagine that a Galaxy winger will need to be good in creating danger from long spells of possession, however, if you look at the numbers above, Pec has thus far been a guy that doesn’t make a lot of passes and doesn’t play a lot of line-breaking balls. His expected assists numbers are also not very high, which might once again put the onus on Puig to be the direct assist guy that his deep lying positioning makes difficult. Ideally, the Galaxy’s next winger signing can offer more in the way of passing creativity to balance this out.
The Galaxy have been hot on the hunt for another winger, with interest in Ramon Sosa, Joseph Paintsil and Alberth Elis, just to name a few. While Kuntz has yet to get anything across the line, it seems pretty clear that this position is a high priority target. It's hard to say much about the Galaxy offense without knowing what that piece looks like, but, in the case each of these three targets, they mirror Pec in that they are great in transition, but are, at the very least, unproven in the possession style the Galaxy are likely to play, being low touch guys with so-so chance creation numbers.
On the defensive side, the Galaxy’s backline wasn’t the best last year, allowing the third highest expected goals per game in the league. Part of this had to do with injury with youngster Jalen Neal and veteran, Martín Cáceres finding themselves missing games. With this spat of injuries, the Japanese centerback, Maya Yoshida, was brought in to anchor the backline. The Galaxy looked to Japan once more this offseason, signing right-back Miki Yamane from Kawasaki Frontale. Between these three, the Galaxy will have a great deal of veteran presence on that back line, which, unfortunately, means age. Caceres is 36, Yoshida is 35 and Yamane is 30. While the Galaxy have two young players in Julian Aude and Jalen Neal (both 20), injuries and tired legs may be a concern over the season.
So what does all of this mean for the future of the Galaxy? It's hard to say. The important thing to remember is, despite the talent on this team, this is very much a rebuilding year. Any success the Galaxy do or don’t have this season is merely a starting point in what will likely be a journey to get this club to where Kuntz and company will want it to be. While I don’t think the Galaxy roster is quite good enough to compete for MLS Cup just yet, I think the front office is finally good enough to get this team to a point where they can, very quickly, and long term sustainably.
Chicago Fire FC: Rising to New Heitz
By Brian Greenwood
Another Year Without Playoffs
The Fire did in 2023 what they’ve done in every season since 2017, which is fail to make the MLS Cup Playoffs. Swap “2022” for “2023” and that sentence is also how I began last year’s preview for the Fire. The Fire are nothing if not consistent. So consistent in fact, they finished in the same spot in the Supporters’ Shield standings the last two years (24th). They are now the sole owners of the longest, active playoff drought at 6 seasons and counting. But much like the Bears of this year, there is hope for the future.
Offseason Moves
The Fire continued to bring in players from their sister club FC Lugano by signing right back Allan Arigoni on loan. They bolstered the rest of their back line by trading for Andrew Gutman and Chase Gasper, selecting local goalkeeper Bryan Dowd in the MLS SuperDraft and signing center back Tobias Salquist from the Danish Superliga. They are reportedly finalizing a deal to sign free agent Kellyn Acosta.
On the other side of the ball, the Fire traded for NYRB forward Tom Barlow and re-signed Javier Casas Jr. The Fire spent big on a DP striker by splashing a reported $12 million dollars on Gent’s Hugo Cuypers. More on him in a bit.
Notable departures include MLS veteran Kei Kamara, Ousmane Doumbia and left back Miguel Navarro who went to Colorado in the Gutman trade. Most importantly, the Fire just agreed to a mutual contract termination with DP winger Jairo Torres, freeing up a valuable DP spot.
If you’re looking at all of this and just feeling a bit, meh, you’re probably right. With Torres, who underwhelmed anyways, this Fire team still lacks a real punchy creative type.
Brady Fit the Bill
In last year’s preview, I speculated that there might not be much of a dropoff from Slonina to Brady. Luckily for me (and Chicago), that proved to be true. Brady posted a g+ of -0.01, right around league average, which is great for a young goalkeeper in their first full MLS season. This was about in line with Slonina, so it might be a matter of time for Brady is bound for a big transfer fee and move to Europe. With last year under his belt, the Fire should expect continued improvement from Brady. In addition to his goalkeeping abilities, the defensive additions in front of Brady should help improve his numbers in 2024. We don’t have much data on Arigoni or Salquist, but Arigoni has played a load all across the backline for Lugano this season which adds some much needed depth at worst, and starting quality at best.
Hugo (Boss)
Cuypers tallied 20 goals and 4 assists in the Belgion Pro League last season. Cuypers ranks highly compared to other forwards in non-penatly expected goals, progressive passes received, and tackles, interceptions and blocks. His profile, according to FBref, is similar to Union forward Julian Carranza. Not a bad comparable If Cuypers produces for the Fire like Carranza has done for the Union, Fire fans will be very pleased. It’s unclear how the Pro League translates to MLS, we’ve seen someone like Pozuelo go from Pro League Player of the Year to MLS MVP, we’ve also seen Dante Vanzeir’s numbers crater (when he was on the pitch at all). Assuming it holds true, like Carranza, Cuypers isn’t a self creation guy. Just under three shots, and high receiving numbers, but low dribbles. He isn’t creating stuff. Maybe Shaqiri finally does the thing, otherwise it feels like a bit of a hole in this roster.
2024 Outlook
With a reshaped defensive core and a DP striker, the Fire are looking to change their fortunes in 2024. Success for Chicago this year should be making the playoffs and they have a realistic chance to do that with the moves they’ve made this offseason.