The young player of the month award goes to a 17-year-old at Los Angeles Football Club who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Los Angeles Football Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 17 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Los Angeles Football Club know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Minnesota United FC kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Los Angeles Football Club will be asked about the last half hour all week.
“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 The request is on a desk at Los Angeles Football Club, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.70 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 6 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Sporting Kansas City pay $2.4M, 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.
Mark Delgado 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.27 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Amin Boudri has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A 2‑0 win over Seattle Sounders, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Los Angeles Football Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$2.7M on the table at FC Dallas. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“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 Los Angeles Football Club, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer went to New York Red Bulls 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.
Los Angeles Football Club have gone to Columbus Crew with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Denis Bouanga 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Los Angeles Football Club would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
21 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Los Angeles Football Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Heung-Min Son signs something — a contract at Los Angeles Football Club or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Nkosi Tafari a promise
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.
Kenny Nielsen 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Los Angeles Football Club know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Los Angeles Football Club. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dylan Sargent trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
21 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Los Angeles Football Club can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Los Angeles Football Club can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Heung-Min Son signs something — a contract at Los Angeles Football Club or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
The dugoutDylan Sargent knocks on the manager's door
Timothy Tillman 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Los Angeles Football Club know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
The dugoutDylan Sargent knocks on the manager’s door
SquadHugo Lloris is the talk of the training ground
“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 Los Angeles Football Club, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergi Palencia 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Armindo Sieb 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.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.