Here we are. Game two is officially in the books. And while the LA Galaxy ended up losing 2-1 to New York City FC, not all is lost. In fact, we have some great information that shows there aren’t many Galaxy teams over the years that started 2-0 for six points.
Out of 23 seasons, only four Galaxy teams have started with two wins (1996, 2000, 2002, 2010). And the Galaxy haven’t done it since 2010 – a year that saw them capture the Supporters’ Shield.
For the Galaxy, at least, it doesn’t seem to have any effect on winning the MLS Cup as only one year, 2002, started with two wins and finished by lifting the cup.
If you look at averages over the history of the franchise, with three points after two games, the 2018 team is slightly ahead of the average start at 2.913 points – okay it’s basically a rounding error. But it should reinforce the fact that after two games the Galaxy have not won or lost anything. And they’ve already surpassed 2017’s dismal start.
Another group of charts we’re keeping an eye on is our coach comparison chart between Curt Onalfo, who was fired after 20 games last season, and Sigi Schmid, the current Galaxy Head Coach. We’ve been tracking two different charts to compare their performances against each other.
The first chart (below) is Onalfo through 20 games compared with Schmid through 20 games. This chart starts at the beginning of the 2017 season for Onalfo and picks up with Schmid the day he was hired. So this chart includes games from 2017 and 2018.
Currently, through 16 games in charge for both, Onalfo holds the advantage with a 6-6-4 record for 22 points and a +1 goal differential. Schmid, through the same number of games, is 3-9-4 for 13 points and a -16 goal differential.
But to continue this comparison, we started another chart that matches Onalfo’s first 20 games of the 2017 season with Schmid’s eventual first 20 games of the 2018 season. This is a very preliminary chart, but you can see that the 2018 Galaxy starting 1-1-0 is already better than the 2017 club starting 0-2-0. We’ll continue to visit this chart as we matchup the two coaches.
Finally, we bring you the rest of the Galaxy’s charts and numbers that we keep track of throughout the year. As we stated in Game 1, these don’t mean much yet, but we’ll keep watching them to see when we can draw some comparisons.
For the Galaxy, in 2018, the season is off to a pretty good start. Only nine Galaxy teams have ever started better than 3 points after two games (1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015) with only two of those years culminating in an MLS Cup.
So for the most part, from what we can glean from two games, the 2018 Galaxy are doing just fine.
