CARSON, Calif. – The LA Galaxy will watch the Columbus Crew and Portland Timbers face off in MLS Cup on Sunday waiting for their opportunity to reclaim the title in 2016.
The Galaxy were eliminated from the 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs in the Knockout Round in October, sending the team into their longest offseason in seven years. Although the early postseason exit stung, Galaxy club president Chris Klein says that the team is already hard at work preparing for the 2016 campaign.
“We did a lot of good things this year both on the field and off the field,” Klein told LAGalaxy.com. “We qualified for the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions League for one, but in the end, we assess our season by how we do on the field, and our goal is to win an MLS Cup every year and move to the next round of Champions League. We accomplished one goal, but we did not do the other, so it fell beneath our expectations. In saying that, we feel that we have a group that can come back next year and compete for the things that we want to compete in.”
One of the club’s primary objectives for 2016 will be advancing from their CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal series with Liga MX club Santos Laguna next February.
Becoming the first club from Major League Soccer to win the regional competition has long been a top priority for the Galaxy, and Klein believes a full preseason with the likes of Giovani dos Santos and Steven Gerrard will only help the club accomplish that goal.
“What this offseason has allowed us to do is, to take some time and step back to understand why [we were eliminated],” Klein said. “We had a lot of changes midseason, and that is very difficult to do. Looking back on that, it became a challenge. Not only bringing in Giovani and Gerrard but also losing [Stefan] Ishizaki and [Jaime] Penedo, bringing in [Donovan] Ricketts and [Sebastian] Lletget. For as well as some of those guys did at different points during that time, it was hard to get a rhythm, and we didn’t do as well as expected, in saying that, we’ll be able to bring our core group back and challenge again.
“[Bruce Arena’s coaching staff] is going to make adjustments, but we have to make them earlier this year because going into our preseason, we have a Champions League quarterfinal on Feb. 24. That’s something we’ve always put a lot of focus on. But Giovani is going to have a preseason with us. Gerrard is going to have a preseason with us. Robbie Keane is going to have a preseason after being injured to start last year. To bring all of those guys back, and have a focus and understanding of where we fell short in 2015 will help us come back stronger in 2016.”
As the Galaxy look to get back to the summit of MLS, Klein is adamant that the club will not be shifting their philosophy. They’re going full steam ahead in search of their sixth MLS Cup title in 2016.
“Many people have tried and failed to do it the way that the Galaxy does things, but the Galaxy are still the Galaxy,” Klein said. “We’re going to continue to adapt, improve, and get better.”
Adam Serrano is the LA Galaxy Insider. Read his blog at LAGalaxy.com/Insider and contact him at LAGalaxyInsider@Gmail.com