LA Galaxy: How the storied club got their swagger back

You can learn a lot about the speed and scale of the LA Galaxy’s turnaround by listening to Will Kuntz recall his first matchday at Dignity Health Sports Park after joining the club’s technical staff in April 2023.

Arriving after a highly successful stint with crosstown rivals LAFC – who’d won MLS Cup 2022 just a few months prior – Kuntz encountered a club reeling from years of underachievement, beset by a groundswell of fan discontent that sparked a revolt led by their largest supporters’ groups, who demanded the ouster of president Chris Klein and technical director Jovan Kirovski, boycotting matches until the duo departed.

“It was full-on en fuego,” recalled Kuntz during a one-on-one conversation with MLSsoccer.com at DHSP last month. “My first game, I was sitting back in the conference room there, and I remember [President of Business Operations and Chief Operating Officer] Tom Braun coming in and giving a report on the number of people protesting outside – I mean, like, ‘it’s not as bad as we thought.’

“But yeah, it was not great.”

The manner in which the Galaxy’s general manager rapidly reframed that rebellion, which eventually paved the way to the very changes the supporter groups sought, is revealing, too.

“I also remember thinking, this is what happens when you are a big club and you’re not performing, right? The alternative is nobody cares, and that’s awful,” continued Kuntz. “So the fact that we had fans that were so passionate, so invested, that they show up for the games, but not for the game? That tells you what the potential is.

“And that shows you that there is an appetite, a yearning for something different, which also helped me feel really confident that if we changed our approach a little bit, it would be well received.”

Nineteen months later, with the Gs poised to host the New York Red Bulls in MLS Cup 2024 presented by Audi on Saturday (4 pm ET | Apple TV – Free; FOX, FOX Deportes; TSN, RDS), that instinct has been vindicated, and then some.

It’s not just their impressive march to the final after finishing second in the Western Conference during the regular season with their highest point total…