Marked for Joaquín Molina
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match29 Oct 2036
1‑0 does it. One match from everything the season was for — the largest morning a club can have without having actually won anything, and the one every supporter would take right now anyway.
Match29 Oct 2036
LA Galaxy make home a hard place to visit
24 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings3 Nov 2036
Defensive actions: 43, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad3 Nov 2036
Joaquín Molina breaks a bone — 112 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 112 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match29 Oct 2036
Nobody wants to play LA Galaxy right now
7 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Player ratings3 Nov 2036
Dor Turgeman, 33, rolls back the years — 9.19
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.19 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad3 Nov 2036
Defences have started doubling up on Axel Aamodt
11 goals and a season average of 7.60 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad3 Nov 2036
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Mateusz Bogusz commits to LA Galaxy for another 2 years.
Market3 Nov 2036
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match22 Oct 2036
LA Galaxy make home a hard place to visit
23 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Match22 Oct 2036
4‑0 settles it, and a club that spent a season earning the right to play these games has won one of them. Somebody else's season ended tonight, which is the part nobody mentions in the celebrations.
Squad27 Oct 2036
Gabriel Pec: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” LA Galaxy have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad27 Oct 2036
Joaquín Molina breaks a bone — 119 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 119 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings27 Oct 2036
32 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Player ratings27 Oct 2036
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.73, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad27 Oct 2036
Defences have started doubling up on Mateo Silvetti
14 goals and a season average of 7.76 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Match22 Oct 2036
Nobody wants to play LA Galaxy right now
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad27 Oct 2036
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad20 Oct 2036
A fracture rules Joaquín Molina out for 127 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason LA Galaxy will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad20 Oct 2036
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad20 Oct 2036
Mateo Silvetti 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.
Market20 Oct 2036
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around LA Galaxy they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad20 Oct 2036
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Frank Junior Adjei is living that version at LA Galaxy, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market20 Oct 2036
The Luis Otávio story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luis Otávio signs something — a contract at LA Galaxy or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match11 Oct 2036
The run at home goes on for LA Galaxy
22 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings13 Oct 2036
41 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Match11 Oct 2036
4‑2 settles it, and a club that spent a season earning the right to play these games has won one of them. Somebody else's season ended tonight, which is the part nobody mentions in the celebrations.
Squad13 Oct 2036
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Match8 Oct 2036
A 2‑0 win over Inter Miami CF, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match13 Oct 2036
LA Galaxy are in among the leaders
Position 1 and 62 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad13 Oct 2036
Joaquín Molina breaks a bone — 135 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 135 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings13 Oct 2036
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 30 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad13 Oct 2036
13 goals and a season average of 7.71. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Oct 2036
Joaquín Molina breaks a bone — 142 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 142 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad6 Oct 2036
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad6 Oct 2036
Mohau Nkota 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.
Squad6 Oct 2036
Words at LA Galaxy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Silvetti 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.
Market6 Oct 2036
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at LA Galaxy is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom6 Oct 2036
LA Galaxy release $13.5M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad29 Sep 2036
Joaquín Molina breaks a bone — 149 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 149 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad29 Sep 2036
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.
Market29 Sep 2036
Agustín Chávez has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around LA Galaxy they have already started talking about him in the past tense.