Sergi Roberto began the summer sitting at home in southern Spain, uncertain he’d ever play soccer again. In San Diego, Hirving “Chucky” Lozano was wondering the same thing. He had the fourth-largest contract in MLS but San Diego FC was paying him not to play following a verbal altercation with coach Mikey Varas last fall.
In Texas, meanwhile, Robert Taylor was sitting at the end of the bench for Austin FC, having made just one regular-season start in two seasons.
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By the end of August, however, those three players found themselves on the field with the Galaxy, where they joined Kyogo Furuhashi, who had been cast off by England’s Birmingham City. It wasn’t exactly the island of misfit toys, but general manager Will Kuntz had managed to pull together four talented players from three continents who had nothing to lose and everything to prove.
Now he’s hoping the Forgotten Four will reward that confidence by carrying the Galaxy back to the playoffs. Whether that happens could depend on more than what takes place on the field, though, since all the new players must adjust not only to different teammates, a different style of play and different surroundings but, in some cases, a different league and a different language as well.
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“There’s not a lot of time,” said Kuntz, whose team has 10 games left in the regular season, beginning with Wednesday’s road match against division-leading Vancouver. “But there’s a lot of talent. We can make things competitive, week in and week out.”
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Kuntz continued his tinkering last week, acquiring Argentine midfielder Pablo Ruiz in a trade with Real Salt Lake for $400,000 in allocation money and adding Brazilian defender Lucas Calegari from Eyüpspor of the Turkish Süper Lig for an undisclosed transfer fee. When Calegari, who played 22 games for the Galaxy in 2023, gets his visa paperwork straightened out, coach Greg Vanney could start five players who weren’t in a Galaxy uniform when MLS returned from its seven-week World Cup break in mid-July.
Whether the moves came too late remains to be seen. The Galaxy (7-9-8) have won just twice in their last 10 games to fall to 12th in the 15-team Western Conference table, two points below the playoff line. And that’s left Vanney in a rush to get his new players fit and on the same page tactically.
“These guys will quickly find that rhythm with one another,” he said. “We’re in the process of still getting guys totally match fit but our team is deeper now. We’ve got more guys that can come in and have an impact on the game at the different lines, whether it’s in the back line, midfield, or in the front line.
“Find a rhythm and get momentum. That’s one of the big things in this league that can help carry you from match to match.”
Galaxy forward Robert Taylor controls the ball against Montreal on Aug. 22. (Tim Austen / Getty Images)
In 2024, Vanney led the Galaxy to 24 wins, including playoffs, and an MLS Cup. His team has won just 14 MLS games — and lost 27 — since. It’s one of the most epic collapses for a league champion in MLS history. If the Galaxy miss the playoffs again, as they have in four of the last six seasons, it could cost Vanney his job.
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But if they get in, the Galaxy will enter the postseason with a team far deeper than the one with which they started the season.
Taylor, the first summer addition to arrive, joined the Galaxy in mid-July and scored his first goal in 14 months in Saturday’s win over New England. He’s been in MLS since 2022 — first with Inter Miami, then with Austin — and he already feels comfortable in his new surroundings.
“I feel like I picked things up and adapted to the team pretty fast,” he said. “I don’t feel like there was any time period where I felt like I needed to start adapting or needed to build anything up.”
Not so for Roberto, who spent the last two seasons with Como in Italy’s Serie A. The former Barcelona captain is still living out of a suitcase and trying to regain his fitness since he hasn’t gone a full 90 minutes since October of 2024 and hadn’t trained with a team in more than three months before coming to L.A. in late August.
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The Galaxy have split the two games in which he played, but in the 91 minutes he was on the field, he showed he can be a game-changing — if not season-changing — presence.
“It’s been a few weeks of changes,” said Roberto, whose wife and four children remain in Spain. “Naturally, changes take time, but we’re here now. I’m really happy and very grateful for the trust shown by the coach and the club for believing in me and bringing me here.
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“As for pressure, well, the real pressure comes when things aren’t going well or you’re struggling. But even when everyone is singing your praises, you can’t let it go to your head, because football has its ups and downs. So, you have to keep working.”
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Of the new acquisitions, some are more permanent than others. Roberto, 34, is signed through 2028, for example, while the loan for Lozano, 31, expires in December, although the Galaxy can make it permanent at the end of the year. Taylor, who turns 32 next month, has a club option for next season; Ruiz, 27, is out of contract at the end of the season but has options for the next two years; and Calegari, 24, is signed through June 2029. Furuhashi, 31, is the most secure of the newcomers with a five-year deal — not that anyone is thinking that far ahead.
For Kuntz, Vanney and the rest of the new-look Galaxy, the success or failure of the summer signing spree will be determined in the next 10 games.
⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
