Carson, California—The Galaxy never lost an MLS game at Dignity Health Sports Park in 2024. San Diego Football Club defeated the reigning champion Galaxy 2-0 in the first game of their existence in 2025. How could this happen?
The MLS guts their champions by forcing them to apply all player bonuses to the salary cap, a hit that can consume ten to fifteen percent. They also incentivize teams to acquire players under the age of twenty-two. Time marches on, players like Gabriel Pec and Dejan Joveljic age out, forcing teams to sell or trade players to compensate. One such move broke up broke up a career-long partnership.
LA Galaxy coach Greg Vanney won an MLS Cup in Toronto before his second championship in 2024 with the Galaxy. He won with different franchises and different rosters, except for one player. Mark Delgado. Delgado featured on the roster for every game in Vanney’s coaching career, except this one. Traded to crosstown rival LAFC, Delgado contributed to the winning goal with a gorgeous outside-of-the-foot pass to Bouanga that opened up the Minnesota defense. Cherundulo simply repositioned Delgado on the left side of the midfield in the second half, a tactical adjustment that won the game.
As long as Delgado operates between the opposing penalty boxes, he can find the right space, pick the right pass, and cover the ground necessary to balance the team. He gives the coach nearly limitless tactical flexibility because he will reliably fill any role. After spending his entire career under Vanney in a possession-based system, Delgado looks perfectly comfortable in the counter-attacking setup across town.
A recent Soccer Den piece highlighted Greg Vanney’s tactical acumen. Perhaps that article needs an update: the need for a Swiss army knife in the midfield to make tactical adjustments possible. The Galaxy acquired twenty-one-year-old Uruguayan Lucas Sanbria, hoping to add a piece to fill Delgado’s shoes. The first seventy minutes indicate the move may not work out. Sanabria and midfield Metronome Edwin Cerrillo played like twins, patrolling the middle and keeping the game in front of them.
The Galaxy back line played exceptionally well, preventing San Diego designated players Chucky Lozano and Anders Dreyer from getting off a meaningful shot. Goalkeeper Novak Micovic controlled the box on corner kicks. But without a mobile and dynamic midfielder to find spaces between the lines, the Galaxy promptly gave the ball back to San Diego. Left-back Miki Yamane tried to take up some of the slack, moving into deep-lying midfield spaces to free up Cerrillo or Sanabria. Neither did much with the opportunity, so Yamane pushed up into wide positions, made runs in between the lines, and progressed the ball himself. Whatever Yamane tried, Cerrillo and Sanabria could not seem to find good spaces to help him.
On the left, winger Diego Fagundez, Cerrillo, attacking midfielder Marco Reus, and left-back John Nelson combined with quick-flowing moves that broke past the San Diego midfield reminiscent of 2024. When they picked up their heads to look for options, Sanabria remained behind the ball in a typical defensive midfield position, and Pec repeatedly tried to run behind the defense. With no one to mark, the San Diego midfield easily covered the dangerous spaces. The attack stalled, and the Galaxy recycled the ball across the back line again.
Vanney justified his choice to replace MLS Cup-winning goalkeeper John McCarthy with the twenty-three-year-old Novak Micovic because of his superior ability to pass out of the back. In the fifty-second minute, Micovic’s clumsy waist-high pass to Garces led to a turnover in the Galaxy penalty box. Dryer capitalized, and the champions found themselves down 1-0.
The goal simultaneously energized and disorganized the Galaxy. Sanabria began ball hunting, revealing the midfield destroyer in him. He and Garces combined to dispossess Chucky Lozano. Yamane pushed very high, playing the role of a right-sided winger, getting behind the defense. Pec moved inside, and Micovic tried hitting long balls at him. Glimpses of promising moves materialized only to evaporate.
German legend Marco Reus seemed nearly absent from the proceedings, except for prevailing over Pec in an argument over who should take a freekick. His strike sailed comfortably over San Diego goalkeeper CJ Dos Santos’ bar.
In the seventy-first minute, the introduction of USL product Elijah Wynder, midfielder Ruben Ramos, left-back Julian Aude, and forward Miguel Berry for Sanabria, Reus, Nelson, and Christian Ramirez injected life into the Galaxy. A true box-to-box midfielder, Wynder provided options for Yamane and Cerrillo on the right, occupying defenders and giving Pec his first isolation on a San Diego defender.
For the first time, the Galaxy controlled the game. Julian Aude, who suffered through an injury-plagued 2024, did not look sharp. More offensive-minded than Nelson, he pushed higher up the pitch, getting into good positions but just off in the timing, both delivering and receiving passes.
With Wynder providing options through the middle, the entire defense pushed forward. In the seventy-eighth minute, Yamane raced to the end line onto a Pec pass and ripped a low cross to Berry, crashing the goal. Berry’s shot caromed off Dos Santos a close range. Good goalkeeping prevented a sure goal.
A minute later, Cerrillo won the ball on a repress and played to Wynder, who fed Yamane once again. This time, Yamane picked out Ramos ghosting onto the far left post. The moment in front of a wide-open goal seemed to overcome him as he wasted the opportunity with a timid effort. One wonders what Reus would have done with that cross.
The third wave of attack three minutes later put Pec behind the defense on the end line. He picked a poor pass to the penalty spot, and SD managed to clear the danger. On the ensuing corner kick, Yoshida battled for Fagundez’s cross, but it skipped out to Yamane, who immediately cut it back to Aude at the top corner of the box. Unprepared for the pass, the Argentine missed the ball, and San Diego set out on a counter-attack.
Tomas Angel held the ball until Dryer arrived on the right. Even a lung-busting ninety-yard recovery run by Garces could not prevent the deft Angel pass from reaching Dryer. With Micovic at his mercy, he roofed a rocket off the underside of the crossbar, 2-0 San Diego, game over.
At the final whistle, San Diego looked like a veteran team with years under their belt together. The Galaxy looked as if they’d just met. The string of undefeated performances at the Digs destroyed, the realization they may have replaced Delgado with a Cerrillo twin in Sanabria, and injuries to Paintsil and Puig, welcome to the 2025 LA Galaxy.
