The MLS team with the most all-time championships will face off against the current title holder Sunday when the Los Angeles Galaxy host New York City FC in a season opener at Carson, Calif.
The Galaxy have won five titles in nine trips to the league championship game, but their glory days have slipped away since last capturing the league’s top trophy in 2014.
NYCFC gained their first title in December in their first MLS Cup appearance when they defeated the host Portland Timbers in penalty kicks.
“The whole club, including myself, gets more hungry when you achieve something like you did last year,” NYCFC head coach Ronny Deila said.
NYCFC move into the opener after advancing through the round of 16 in the CONCACAF Champions League with a 6-0 aggregate victory over Santos de Guapiles of Costa Rica. Talles Magno had two goals in Wednesday’s 4-0 victory after Valentin Castellanos scored both goals in last week’s 2-0 win in Costa Rica.
NYCFC already has acclimated themselves to Los Angeles. Wednesday’s game against Santos was played at the home of Los Angeles FC, since a CONCACAF-approved venue was not available in the New York area.
Castellanos won the MLS Golden Boot Award last season, tying D.C. United’s Ola Kamara with 19 goals and taking the honor on a tiebreaker with eight assists. NYCFC had transfer offers for the Argentina native, but no team matched the club’s reported $15 million asking price.
Castellanos not only scored goals in NYCFC’s last four regular-season games, he tallied in all three playoff games in which he played. He holds the longest active scoring streak in MLS.
Despite the Galaxy having box-office draws at forward in recent years like Zlatan Ibrahimovic (2018-19) and Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez (2020-present), the club has made the playoffs just once in the past five seasons.
A late-season collapse cost them a playoff spot last season, and the Galaxy parted ways with key contributors like Jonathan Dos Santos and United States Men’s National Team mainstay Sebastian Lletget.
Hernandez, who scored a team-leading 17 goals last season, will now partner with Brazilian midfielder Douglas Costa for scoring opportunities. Midfielder Efrain Alvaraz will look for even more production after playing a career-high 26 games last season.
“It’s showtime,” Hernandez said. “I have been talking, and all of us have been talking in the preseason that we want this day to come and we have to prove it inside the pitch. … Since I have arrived here you can see improvement from the whole organization. It’s a process.”
–Field Level Media
