“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Philadelphia Union, and it is not being withdrawn.
Japhet Sery Larsen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 May 2029
Kenji Cabrera falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Philadelphia Union are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout28 May 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Brandon Johnson left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Philadelphia Union will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Philadelphia Union, and it is not being withdrawn.
$5.7M on the table at DC United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Philadelphia Union this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Philadelphia Union are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Brandon Johnson left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Japhet Sery Larsen is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 100 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The chase for Kerwin Vargas ended with $6.0M changing hands and Charlotte Football Club out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $14.3K of what LA Galaxy paid for Máximo Carrizo is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Philadelphia Union pay $950.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Kerwin Vargas was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $6.0M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Justin Haak and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Julián Aude falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The phone has started ringing about Brady Scott again, and this time the name on the line is San Diego Football Club. LA Galaxy are listening politely and promising nothing.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Justin Haak
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Ajani Fortune
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Philadelphia Union can pretend not to have heard.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Corey Baird scored in the 89th minute, Columbus Crew had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Philadelphia Union took the lot.
$6.1M was the most the club would pay and Vancouver Whitecaps were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Philadelphia Union have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.80 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The fee is $1.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Colorado Rapids drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The chase for Máximo Carrizo ended with $950.0K changing hands and LA Galaxy out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kenji Cabrera is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The offer went to New York City this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
LA Galaxy offered $5.7M; Real Salt Lake said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
$2.2M on the table at Colorado Rapids. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what LA Galaxy can pretend not to have heard.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.5M — a club that wants Hamzat Ojediran enough to be asked twice.
Sergi Roberto and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The name of Jackson Ragen has come up in conversations LA Galaxy were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Words at LA Galaxy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Sanabria is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Portland Timbers go through. The table said this team was good enough for months and the format does not care what the table said, which is the argument every eliminated club has had with itself since playoffs were invented.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Matt Freese: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at LA Galaxy, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at LA Galaxy hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words at LA Galaxy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Reus is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Loan watch6 Nov 2028
Novak Mićović’s loan is measured in nothing happening
12 clean sheets from 29 appearances at Atlanta United FC. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at LA Galaxy, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LA Galaxy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Heung-Min Son falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at LA Galaxy pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
25 appearances at Atlanta United FC and the goals have stopped going in. LA Galaxy lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Máximo Carrizo has come out of that comparison in the side, and LA Galaxy have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether LA Galaxy can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Nobody at LA Galaxy will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at LA Galaxy, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kevin Kelsy’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and LA Galaxy needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Máximo Carrizo is 20, and LA Galaxy have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Julián Aude has his answer from LA Galaxy; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Kevin Paredes has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Luis Otávio is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
In brief
The dugoutCarlos Garcés knocks on the manager’s door
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Justin Haak
The dugoutHalf-satisfied: David Turner on the draw
0‑3 against Inter Miami CF, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
LA Galaxy paid $1.3M and New York City took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at New York City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I did not go to Vancouver Whitecaps to sit and watch. I want to come back to New York City and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at New York City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Fernández Mercau is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.75 for the rest of it.
Match11 Sep 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for New York City. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolás Fernández Mercau was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at New York City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every New York City game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at San Diego Football Club runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Atlanta United FC next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Two goals and a mark of 8.69 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at New York City, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Charlton Athletic have kept their man, and New York City go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at New York City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Den Bosch have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Keaton Parks. The answer from New York City has not changed — yet.
A 2‑1 win over FC Cincinnati, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
20 appearances at Falkenberg and the goals have stopped going in. New York City lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tayvon Gray was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.