The LA Galaxy came off their worst season in recent memory. The post-mortem seems to be that it was a combination of injuries and poor construction of the team and toxic locker room culture. The big question mark for LAG's braintrust is who stays and who goes? And is the rebuild going to be to blow up the whole thing or just make a few changes?
Meanwhile, LAFC has a blank slate to work from.
LAFC is slowly adding some talent to their squad.
Carlos Vela was their first big name signing from the Mexico national team and La Liga. He was obtained via the Designated Player (DP) mechanism.
Omar Gaber is coming on loan from Swiss Super League and is arriving using Targeted Allocation Money (TAM).
LAFC will get some players via the expansion draft and other draft procedures.
In the past, one had very low expectation of how competitive an expansion team can be. However, with the success of Atlanta United last year, it is possible to make the right picks and field a highly competitive team.
MLS is highly regulated. I understand the Designated Player concept to bring in high priced talent and to keep those salaries out of the overall team salary cap. Where it gets complicated is TAM and General Allocation Money (GAM) and the various slots that fill out the Salary Budget.
All these rules are in place to provide guardrails to clubs so they don't ruin themselves financially and to impose a measure of parity in the league.
However, there is the feeling that MLS will need to gain more fans to truly be competitive on the world stage. Additionally, MLS needs to (as does the USMNT at all levels) continue to improve in identifying and developing home grown talent and encouraging some of that talent to go outside the USA to develop those players.
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