Column: 2026 is a legacy year for LA Galaxy Head Coach Greg Vanney
Year 1 of Vanney's new contract extension begins, why this season will shape his legacy
The 2026 MLS season is a legacy-defining season for LA Galaxy Head Coach Greg Vanney. It is Vanney’s first season under his new contract (which reportedly makes him one of the highest-paid coaches in the league) and second season without star playmaker Riqui Puig. This upcoming season will set the tone for how this new stage of the Vanney era kicks off.
Vanney’s won a championship for his former club, but the MLS landscape moves fast. He’s had up and down seasons in charge of the Galaxy, one of which includes arguably one of the worst seasons in LA Galaxy history.
The news of Riqui Puig’s second ACL surgery ruling him out for the 2026 season sets up the upcoming campaign much differently compared to last season. The major question is whether Vanney can navigate the club near the top of MLS again.
Vanney can’t endure another lost season like 2025. In any other league in the world, Vanney would’ve been removed from his head coaching job following a 16-game winless start last season.
To Vanney’s credit, the LA Galaxy played much better in the second half of the season, but it was too late to make up the ground of 16 games without a win. 2026 presents the perfect opportunity to rewrite narratives or watch his seat grow increasingly warmer as the season progresses.
It’s common for MLS teams to spend most of their capital on the attack. People want to be entertained with goals, and it makes it easier to sell players for bigger transfer fees in the future.
The LA Galaxy did that in 2024 with around $20 million spent on Gabriel Pec and Joseph Paintsil. It resulted in one of the best attacking foursomes in MLS history, with Paintsil, Pec, Puig and Joveljic having stellar campaigns each. Most of the LA Galaxy’s major investments under Vanney’s tenure have been attackers (Kevin Cabral, Douglas Costa, Pec, Paintsil, Puig). Now that has shifted to the defensive end for the first time.
Historically, defense has always been one of the inconsistencies of Greg Vanney's teams.
I have previously written:
“In his 10 full seasons as a head coach (2020 season not counted due to COVID shortened season), six of Vanney’s teams have finished in the bottom four of goals allowed in their respective conference. Toronto FC in 2016 and 2017 are the two times Vanney’s squads have finished the season with the least number of goals conceded in the conference.
In his five seasons in charge of the LA Galaxy, the squad has finished either at the bottom or the second worst in goal allowed three times. There is a multitude of reasons for this but nonetheless, the common denominator is that Vanney’s teams aren’t consistently sound defensively.”
The 2023 LA Galaxy tied a club record 67 goals allowed. The 2025 season saw LA allow 66 goals to hit the back of the net. These aren’t just bad numbers; they’re historically bad.
It’s no surprise that LA spent the early portion of the offseason targeting quality defenders. Jakob Glesnes is a former MLS Defender of the Year winner and Justin Haak was the most coveted defensive free agent this offseason.
This is the type of investment and ambition that every MLS team wishes it could achieve on the defensive side of the ball. Not to mention LA has young defenders like Emiro Garces, Julian Aude, Mauricio Cuevas, and Harbor Miller that looked poised to take a leap in 2026.
It’s on Vanney for the Galaxy to at least be an average team on the defensive end. His most important task is to find the right backline that can develop into one of the league’s best. This level of investment is for the backline to be developed into an immovable object by the time the regular season comes to an end, and the playoffs start to take shape.
Vanney’s success in MLS is tied to two players: Sebastian Giovinco and Riqui Puig. Both players played for a European giant and had the talent to take MLS by storm.
Giovinco made Vanney’s Toronto teams eternal following a domestic treble during the 2017 season. The Italian raised the ceiling of Toronto and allowed for the Canadian side to become a respected team in MLS after years of being an afterthought.
When Puig joined the LA Galaxy midway through the 2022 MLS season, his acquisition sparked LA’s attack and there were glimpses that the G’s could be contenders for silverware.
The Galaxy was eliminated in the playoffs, heartbreakingly following a loss to LAFC. The 2023 season was a disaster with off-the-field issues and injuries stopping LA from building any positive momentum all season long.
It all came together in 2024 with Puig fully showcasing his ability to lead a team to a title and cement himself as an all-time LA Galaxy player.
With Puig out for another season, someone must step up and be the player to lift the ceiling of the team.
Players such as Elijah Wynder and Lucas Sanabria are expected to take a leap in their sophomore season with the club. Pec and Paintsil had underwhelming moments last season, but they get a clean slate in 2026. Matheus Nascimento will return for at least half of the season, and the acquisition of Joao Klauss brings that MLS experience (two seasons with double-digit goal contributions). Veteran Marco Reus has that game-changing ability, but it is highly unlikely that he will be relied upon for a whole season.
This is where the pressure comes onto Vanney to get it right this season.
His coaching and tactics need to get the best out of the current roster without Puig. He couldn’t do that last season; now this is a second chance to get that right. The front office has added more depth that is battle-tested in MLS play.
With the Galaxy’s 1-1 draw with Sporting Miguelito in the Concacaf Champions Cup, there is a bit of disappointment in the result. LA lacked dynamism in the first half and Vanney called his team “stagnant” in the press conference. This result isn’t the end of the world but not the ideal way to start the first game of the season. If not for Joseph Paintsil’s second-half goal, there would be more pressure from the fanbase to end LA’s first week of meaningful games.
When Vanney’s back is against the wall, he’s found ways to escape that and let the results do the talking.
In 2024, there was a vast amount of pressure on him to lead the team back to winning after a horrible 2023 season for the club. Vanney would end the season creating one of the best attacking frontlines in MLS Cup playoff history and winning MLS’s ultimate prize.
Before that season kicked off, I wrote a column like this one back in 2024. I questioned if Vanney was the right guy to lead this team to success. Was he just a bridge for another manager to get the best out of the Galaxy? I expressed concern that his time with the LA Galaxy could come to an end that season.
Despite those two horrible seasons, Vanney’s found a way to keep his squad invigorated. Not once in my time covering the LA Galaxy have I gotten the feeling that the players were starting to turn on their manager. Vanney’s been able to navigate his group into getting better despite the circumstances they dealt with at the start of the season.
How this new chapter of Vanney’s LA Galaxy tenure will begin is the mouthwatering story of the season.