Football Season Review

LA Galaxy enjoyed a fairly successful season, achieving their minimum aim for the season by returning to the playoffs for the first time in three years but poor defending meant they were not able to go far, bowing out in the Conference semifinals. LA started the season on fire, winning seven of their first nine games to quickly climb towards the top of the Western Conference standings. The Galaxy were scoring for fun, aided by Zlatan Ibrahimovic who ended the season with 31 goals from 31 games, but it was at the back where problems quickly rose and LA suffered a big slump in form midway through the season. Giancarlo Gonzalez's signing had little impact in shoring up the leaky defense and consistency suffered as a result with LA slowly sliding down the table. It was Cristian Pavon's arrival in August that helped stabilize the results somewhat and LA did just enough to finish the regular season in fifth place before beating Minnesota United in the first knockout round only to lose heavily to Los Angeles FC in the Conference semifinals. A solid season for Guillermo Barros Schelotto in his first season in charge but the LA coach has a major rebuilding job during the off-season with Ibrahimovic confirming his exit while Pavon, Favio Alvarez and Uriel Antuna had all arrived on loan deals and their future will need to be dealt with if LA are to enjoy an even better campaign next season.

Player of the Season: Zlatan Ibrahimovic