P/I/P Season 30 Game 3 - LA Galaxy vs St Louis, 3/9/25, 4 p.m. PST - Apple TV

Vanney can only win with talent, he only knows one system and can't adjust (but he won us one).

It's becoming clear they promised Micovic the starting job if he shut up last year after his tantrum. Turns out he isn't better than McCarthy, just paid more. If this year is all about money, he shouldn't be on the roster.

 

I think Bruce would still struggle with our squad. The improvements to San Jose are literally night and day. I think as much as I like Reus, Losing Delgado was a much bigger issue here. I didn't watch this game, but we've more or less lost control of the midfield, and Cerillo works fine with a proper 8 next to him, because Delgado also provided defensive cover as well.

As for Micovic. I think the issue is he was meant to be the long term solution. JMac was meant to be only a temporary player. He also had 1 or 2 actually good games last season (Mico) that made them like him long term. Now that he's here as the regular starter, cracks in his game are starting to appear. Sure he's young, so consistency isn't going to be there, but there has to be a limit before Vanney thinks JMac should just be our starting gk.

 

Reus looked like he was pretty good today.

I thought Miller was good but I didn’t see the third goal (walking towards the exit) so not sure if he was at fault. It was on his side.

Parente had some moments.

Pec just lacking finish. Also some surprising bad touches. Forcing it so hard.

Micovic super disappointing. I’d drop him.

I still think we can get our shit together come April.

 

Micovic is not paid more than McCarthy. Last season, he was paid $150K and McCarthy made a guaranteed $290K. They did, however, pay a large transfer fee ($1m) for Micovic and they indirectly are paying a fee for his int'l spot because they have to acquire a spot every year since they have more int'l players than the max allotment.

It would be sunk cost fallacy thinking if they were playing him to justify the transfer fee and int'l spot expense, but I suspect they wanted to find out if he was an upgrade over McCarthy's biggest weaknesses (crosses in the air and distribution) and to let him prove himself to the team or to another team if they wanted to sell him back to Europe and recoup some of those costs.

I think he lacks confidence at this point, something Vanney agreed might be a problem in the post-game press conference. Not having Jovelic on the team may have isolated him a bit too. Those guys looked inseparable the last couple of seasons.

 

I do like the Diego Valeri y Sami combo. My Spanish isn’t great, but I think they give balanced commentary.

 

From my perspective, Parente was competent and created some chances. He earned some more playing time.

Isaiah Parente made a positive impression in his first start for the LA Galaxy.

One of the few bright spots from LA's 3-0 loss to St. Louis CITY SC. #LAGalaxy pic.twitter.com/TXJKVYAxwR

— Alex Ruiz (@AlxRuiz15) March 10, 2025

 

Like Parente and Miller. Still sour on Reus - he's not making our team better, IMO. Pec is playing very tight, the bad touches and missed shots were not like him. Fagundez is not doing enough. It looks like we are in preseason.

Like all of you I'm very discouraged about the defense, and maybe Vanney had a good reason to start Micovic, but it's cost us in these first 3 games.

Someone said we have the worst start of any championship team. Yay.

 

Twellman said it about 46 times.