New LA Galaxy leadership took over this offseason. For a perpetually ambitious team, formulating a clearer plan than “throw a bunch of good players on the field and hope it works” will be the goal. Dennis te Kloese, a Dutchman with roots in Mexican soccer, is the new general manager, tasked with difficult roster questions. Former Boca Juniors manager Guillermo Barros Schelotto will coach a temperamental group of players. 

Perhaps this will be the season that the Galaxy get their collective act together. They’ve given themselves yet another puzzle to unscramble, with a mess of egos and high-paid superstars balanced by a yet-unsolved calamity of a backline.

LA’s most immediate issue: They have four Designated Players on the roster, one more than the maximum allowed of three, meaning they have to find a way to discard one of those superstars by the start of the season. None of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Romain Alessandrini, Giovani dos Santos, and Jonathan dos Santos can be bought down with Targeted Allocation Money. LA have to sell, buy out or trade one (or more) of them.

Compounding this, their overpaid cast of unproductive defenders wreaks havoc on both cap space and goalkeeper David Bingham, himself another issue. Michael Ciani and Ashley Cole had their options declined, while right back Rolf Feltscher and versatile defender Dave Romney will return on new contracts, awaiting reinforcements. 

LA’s scorched-earth transfer market policies keep coming back to bite them. The Galaxy made the mistake of believing every transaction occurs in a vacuum, and suffered the consequences when their roster became a bunch of square pegs in round holes.

The Galaxy tend to trip over themselves in their rush to acquire a maximum amount of star power. Nothing seems to quite fit together. Giovani dos Santos, once a best XI-caliber MLS player, has gradually grown superfluous (and disinterested) as other, more productive players arrived. They traded for Ola Kamara last offseason only to sign Ibrahimovic, who plays the same position. They have too much and too little at the same time.

Giovani seems the most likely DP to leave in some way by the start of the regular season. He saw his minutes dwindle last year as the Galaxy became Zlatan’s team. Most projected Galaxy lineups do not include the elder dos Santos brother, preferring the likes of Alessandrini, defensive midfielder Perry Kitchen and USMNT prospect Sebastian Lletget. 

The problem with Giovani is his positional ambiguity. He has to be the centerpiece of a formation, balanced by players who suit his strengths and weaknesses and can offset his defensive shortcomings. Zlatan took over when he arrived, basically reshaping everything around him — and to pretty good effect, considering his on-goal production. The late, great Sigi Schmid decided it didn’t make sense to keep starting Giovani.

Dos Santos didn’t play more than 45 minutes in a game after July, and was on the field for just 44 total minutes over the final 10 matches of the season. LA’s defensive problems were bad at pretty much all points in the season, so playing two outright minuses in attack (GDS and Zlatan) did not make sense without clear attacking benefits. Jonathan dos Santos and Lletget became the superior midfield options.

The odd thing is that Giovani wasn’t terribly unproductive. He managed 0.65 xG+xA per 96 in his 872 minutes, a figure on par with Alessandrini and better than such stars as Ignacio Piatti and Nicolas Lodeiro. He put up 0.30 xA per 96, indicating he was creating chances, and he produced more shots on target per game than his prior two MLS seasons. 

These statistics do not take into account his poor defensive contributions, which are difficult to measure effectively with analytics. By the eye test, he didn’t play nearly at the level of his 2016 campaign. 

He still doesn’t get on the ball a ton. His 2018 touch percentage was low, at 9.3 percent, but not quite as low as his other two MLS seasons, including that magical 2016. He remains a bit of an enigma.

Selling could prove even harder than deploying him productively. He reportedly rejected a potential transfer abroad this offseason, and per LAG Confidential, he has a no-trade clause in his contract, making it difficult to deal him to another MLS team. His high salary and recent struggles diminish his value anyway. A buyout could be on the horizon if te Kloese can’t conjure a more favorable solution.

JDS, who signed with the Galaxy for the expressed purpose of playing with his brother, may not want to stick around LA if Giovani leaves. He would likely be easier to offload, but a JDS sale would open a gaping hole in the midfield, and may not fetch a huge fee given the urgency of the situation. The European transfer window ends in just more than a week, anyway. 

Alessandrini, for his part, also reportedly turned down a foreign move, and is a productive player who fits Zlatan’s style. Keeping him should be a goal, barring an opportunity to sign a better, more expensive player. Rumors abound, given this is the Los Angeles Galaxy and they’re coached by the renowned Schelotto. All of this could be turned on its head if there’s some new opportunity to acquire a game-changing superstar. 

LA will have to solidify other areas of the field — notably the entire defense — with cash invested heavily elsewhere. They’ll hope second-year former SuperDraft pick Tomas Hilliard-Arce can develop into a starting-caliber center back, and that other midfielders and attackers playing for their USL team emerge.

Te Kloese’s primary job is to calm down the chaos, while putting a team around Zlatan that can capitalize on having arguably MLS’s best player. He has to give Schelotto a team that can do more than throw bodies forward and hope they score enough goals to offset disastrous defending. 

He has to cultivate an actual productive academy and USL pipeline, which the Galaxy have tragically failed to accomplish in the last few years. LA is a talent hotbed. They’re missing huge opportunities. 

Imagine if they had a young player worth selling on right now who could fetch them enough money to then buy a starting left back. Easier said than done, but compared to other markets,  LA were born on third base in terms of growing a productive academy. 

Before any of that, they have to get rid of a DP, and then figure out how to effectively use the remaining ones. Putting a competent soccer team on the field with the level of talent the Galaxy have shouldn’t be that hard, but it’s only increasing in difficulty as they try and avenge their last two failed seasons. 

Harrison Hamm is a sportswriter who covers American soccer and MLS for FloFC. He also covers sports for FanSided and The Comeback, and has freelanced for the Washington Post.