The Joveljić Effect: How His Departure Shifted the Galaxy’s Identity
As the Galaxy slip in the standings, a familiar face in Kansas City colors reminds them of the spark they lost in the offseason
The LA Galaxy will walk into Children’s Mercy Park on Sunday not just facing a familiar foe—but a haunting memory of what they once had.
Wearing Sporting Kansas City blue will be Dejan Joveljić, the striker whose heroics etched his name into LA Galaxy lore less than six months ago.
In 2024, Joveljić wasn’t just another goalscorer. He was the Galaxy’s clutch goalscorer, netting the decisive strikes in both the Western Conference Final and the MLS Cup Final to seal the Galaxy’s sixth league title. Alongside creative forces like Riqui Puig, Joseph Paintsil, and Gabriel Pec, he formed the core of an attacking unit that made Galaxy fans believe again.
But in a salary cap league like Major League Soccer, it's hard to maintain a core of elite players for an extended period of time.
Faced with roster constraints and a shifting salary structure ahead of the 2025 season, the Galaxy made the difficult decision to part ways with Joveljić in the offseason. The Serbian international was sold to Sporting Kansas City for a $4 million fee—making history as the league’s first-ever cash-for-player trade. The deal made Joveljić a Designated Player, which also gave him a well-deserved pay raise for the 25-year-old.
Now, just a few months later, his absence is still felt in LA.
“We miss his mentality in training,” said Galaxy head coach Greg Vanney during media availability on Friday.
“He was feisty, and he’d talk a little bit of shit. Sometimes people took offense, and sometimes it got things going, but you love that.”
That mental edge is exactly what the current Galaxy squad seems to lack. Through the early weeks of the 2025 campaign, the defending champions have stumbled, struggling to score and slipping to the bottom of the standings.
The fire that powered them to glory seems to have cooled, and players are starting to say the quiet parts out loud.
After a deflating 4-2 home loss to the Portland Timbers, veteran Marco Reus pointed directly at the tone of weekly training sessions during the current season: “There needs to be more quality,” he said postgame.
Vanney echoed the concern on Friday, saying, “It's your habits that you create in training, or who you are when you show up on Saturday. So I think collectively, we've been talking about that.”
“It's individuals showing up and the collective group showing up and competing at a high level, in training, taking every repetition to finish like it's a repetition in the game. And it gets exacerbated when you're not executing in games, and when things are working against you,” he added.
During his time with the LA Galaxy, Joveljić helped forge those good habits. He didn’t just score—he demanded more from his teammates and himself. On the field, he was a ruthless finisher. Off it, he set the standard. His confidence bordered on audacious at times.
In one memorable national TV moment, he told Fox’s Rob Stone and Alexi Lalas that he was “the future of LA Galaxy.”
The LA Galaxy legend now belongs to Kansas City.
“I won the trophy with them, it’s going to be special, I’m not going to lie,” Joveljić told local Kansas City reporters this week. “But now I am at Sporting, and a couple of guys are missing [on the Galaxy], so it’s not the same team as last year.”
The emotions are mixed, but not very sentimental. “I was a good friend with every other guy, but not so much outside of the field,” he added. “But on the field, we are like brothers—and that’s why we won the league.”
On Sunday, those brothers become opponents. For LA, the match will be more than just another road test, it will be a mirror.
Staring back at them will be the striker they once had, being the human embodiment of the killer instinct they’re still trying to rediscover.