Friday night in Los Angeles, the Vancouver Whitecaps will take on last season’s MLS Cup winners, the LA Galaxy, at Dignity Health Tennis Center, as they continue their road tour of teams from the city of angels.

Following the elation of a title at the end of last season, the newest campaign has been a nightmare for the Galaxy. They went winless across their first 16 matches, and still only have one win and a total of 9 points across 20 games.

What has gone so wrong? Well, injuries and absences are the easiest answers. Riqui Puig is still recovering from the major injury he sustained in the playoffs, while Joseph Paintsil was late to join the squad after a preseason hamstring injury. Those two accounted for 39 G+A last season, which is hard to replace. Equally, the Galaxy lost Dejan Joveljić to Sporting KC in the offseason, who recorded a further 15 goals and 5 assists last season.

The biggest strength of last season’s title-winning team was their four-headed monster up front, which kept opponents off balance and unsure of which threat to try to negate. This season, LAG has often had only one of those players in the XI. Gabriel Pec has been that man most often, and he’s suffered the consequences. Pec was last season’s MLS Newcomer of the Year with 16 goals and 12 assists, though he currently sits at a pedestrian 3 goals for the 2025 campaign.

The Galaxy also lost some other underrated players in the offseason. Marky Delgado ate up a lot of tough midfield minutes for the Galaxy last year, but he moved across town to LAFC to start the year. Young defender Jalen Neal moved to CF Montreal, while midfielder Gastón Brugman went to Nashville.

All of these injuries and the departure of players have left behind a squad that is old and slow. Japanese defensive duo Miki Yamane and Maya Yoshida are 31 and 36, respectively. Marco Reus is 36, while Diego Fagúndez is 30 but has been playing in MLS since I was in elementary school. In the lead-up to the season, the Galaxy also added 35-year-old defender Mathias Jørgensen and MLS veteran striker Christian Ramirez (34 years old) as the answer to their Joveljić-sized gap up front. I know for a fact that my colleague Caleb, a big fan of aging curves and studying player regression, absolutely hates the build of this team.

The result of this collection of players has been dismal. Marco Reus has shown that class is permanent with 4 goals and 5 assists, but that’s about the only positive. The Galaxy have the worst defensive record across MLS (42 goals conceded), and they are tied at the bottom of the West in terms of their attacking output, with just 19 goals. The xG numbers suggest that this team is slightly better than they have performed this year, but that includes the fact that the Galaxy were blown out by NY Red Bulls 7-0 on the road, despite the xG being 3.5 to 1.9 on the day. Is that really worth celebrating? I’m not so sure.

Flipping things over to the Whitecaps, Jayden Nelson has returned from the Gold Cup, while Brian White and Seb Berhalter remain with the USMNT. This is a Greg Vanney team the Whitecaps are playing, so I would expect a battle for possession, even though the Whitecaps demonstrated they could play without the ball a little more last Sunday against LAFC.

Andres Cubas, after going down against LAFC with an ankle injury, will be out, while Ralph Priso is suspended for yellow card accumulation. That leaves JC Ngando, Jeevan Badwal, and Pedro Vite to steward the midfield. I would expect more from Emmanuel Sabbi and Daniel Rios up front, and perhaps there is an outside shot for Nelson Pierre to earn some minutes after signing a permanent deal ending his loan from the Philadelphia Union. Given that Paintsil and Pec are available for the Galaxy, I would expect a very similar backline to what worked for Vancouver last weekend.

This is a huge chance for Vancouver to scoop another three points on the road while their roster remains depleted. There are goals in this match for the Whitecaps, so they need to manage the defensive end and limit those talented wide threats. I can see this match being mixed for Vancouver with all the players away, so I will predict a 1-1 draw.