Soccer newsletter: Troubling trend could hurt U.S. men’s national team

Hello and welcome to the weekly L.A. Times soccer newsletter. I’m Kevin Baxter, The Times’ soccer writer, and this week we look at how Douglas Costa ended up in L.A., big wins by LAFC and the Galaxy and how air travel has the potential to ground Angel City’s playoff plans.

But we start with a troubling trend affecting some players with the men’s national team. U.S. players have flocked to the continent in record numbers in recent years, with some joining the biggest clubs in the game; five won league or Cup titles in the last two seasons.

But three months before the World Cup kicks off in Qatar, some of those same players aren’t getting regular minutes with their clubs. And without sufficient playing time, they could arrive in Qatar in November unprepared for the rigors of a World Cup. Here are some of the players Gregg Berhalter and his staff are worried about:

Goalkeepers

Zack Steffen (Middlesbrough, English Championship): Steffen, who joined Middlesbrough of the second-tier Championship on loan from Manchester City to get more playing time, has yielded six goals in three games.

Matt Turner (Arsenal, English Premier League): With Aaron Ramsdale the first-choice keeper for the Gunners, Turner will have trouble finding the field. He watched the team’s first two regular-season games from the bench and hasn’t played a competitive match since June 10.

Defenders

Antonee Robinson (Fulham, English Premier League): Played all 180 minutes for unbeaten Fulham in its first two EPL matches.

Sergiño Dest (Barcelona, La Liga): Dest did not dress for Barcelona’s opener, with manager Xavi Hernández preferring Sergi Roberto over the American, who is healthy, at right back. Dest said he wants to stay in Spain, but it’s unlikely he’ll see much playing time if he does. A transfer — Manchester United is reportedly interested — would be in the best interest of the player and the USMNT.

Reggie Cannon (Boavista, Portuguese Liga): Cannon, the starting right back for unbeaten Boavista, hasn’t missed a minute this season.

Chris Richards (Crystal Palace, English Premier League): Made his EPL debut Monday, playing the final 21 minutes of a 1-1 draw with Liverpool.

Midfielders

Tyler Adams (Leeds United, English Premier League): Played the full 90 minutes in both of Leeds’ two league matches.

Yunus Musah (Valencia, La Liga): Musah started and went 90 minutes in Valencia’s La Liga opener Sunday.

Weston McKennie (Juventus, Serie A): McKennie started and went 76 minutes in Juventus’ season-opening win over Sassuolo. However he did not play on the team’s U.S. tour in July before dislocating his shoulder during training just before the team returned to Italy.

Luca de la Torre (Celta Vigo, La Liga): Did not play in his team’s La Liga opener and could struggle trying to find playing time on a team with a deep midfield.

Forwards

Christian Pulisic (Chelsea, English Premier League): Pulisic, who came off the bench in Chelsea’s first two games this summer, has started just 50 times in three seasons at Stamford Bridge. That seems unlikely to change between now and Qatar if he stays with the Blues.

Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United, English Premier League): Started in both of Leeds’ first two EPL matches and went 90 minutes in the second.

Tim Weah (Lille, Ligue 1): Weah missed Lille’s first league game to a suspension and the second to a foot injury that could keep him sidelined for the rest of the month.

Gio Reyna (Dortmund, Bundesliga): Reyna, who missed most of last season with a hamstring injury, is being brought back slowly. He went 45 minutes in Dortmund’s final preseason game last month but did not appear in the team’s first two Bundesliga matches.

Daryl Dike (West Bromwich Albion, English Championship): Dike missed the final four months of last season but appeared primed for a comeback after scoring two goals in the preseason. He then played 13 minutes off the bench in West Brom’s season’s opener. However, a thigh injury sustained in training has him back on the injured list.

Ricardo Pepi (Augsburg, Bundesliga): Appeared in two of Augsburg‘s three games this summer, playing a combined 32 minutes off the bench.

Josh Sargent (Norwich City, English Championship): Has played in all four of the Canaries’ matches, including one start.

How Bale turned into Costa … sort of

Douglas Costa

(Jacob Kupferman / Associated Press)

Speaking of the U.S. and the World Cup, the Americans’ first game in the tournament will be against Wales, a team captained by LAFC’s Gareth Bale. But before Bale joined LAFC, there was a chance he could have wound up with the Galaxy.

“Gareth’s name has been thrown out for probably a year and a half or two years,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said last week. “You don’t necessarily know who exactly is presenting these players and whether the situations are real or not real or whether the timing is right or not. So I don’t know enough about the timing specifically and whether he was available or what the scenario would have looked like.”

But the scenario was not one in which the Galaxy had to choose between Bale and Douglas Costa, contrary to a rumor that gained surprising traction last week.

“It’s never that simple,” Vanney said. “The timing was never exactly between the two of those guys at that given moment, that’s for sure.”

Another thing we know is Bale, who has yet to start a game in MLS, has outplayed Costa, who has become something of an anvil tied around the sinking Galaxy’s neck.

In four substitute appearances, none lasting longer than 28 minutes, Bale has scored two goals in 96 minutes; LAFC has yet to lose a game he’s played in. Costa has the same number of goals in 19 games and 1,054 minutes; the Galaxy are 7-10-2 in those games.

And Costa, whose designated-player (DP) contract will keep him with the club through the end of 2023, is worth $3 million a season, twice what Bale is reportedly getting from LAFC.

But while the Galaxy say they never had to choose between Costa and Bale, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a choice to be made. Only it was between Costa and Argentine forward Cristian Pavón, who was the player Vanney really wanted.

“Everybody wanted Cristian here. That’s always been the guy we’ve wanted,” Vanney said of Pavón, who left a good impression during an 18-month loan with the team in 2019-20, when he had 13 goals and 15 assists in 33 games.

A deal reportedly had been agreed to, but it never was signed because a March 2021 rape case against Pavón remains unsettled.

“We’re being told every two or three months that the situation was going to get cleared. The kid was very well-liked here,” Vanney said. “But also we understand that whatever has gone on there, if they’re not dropping it, then maybe there’s some there. We don’t want to be part of that.

“You have to then pivot because now you’re all of a sudden you’re searching for a DP. That’s just one part of many things that happen in a club on a day-to-day, month-to-month basis, trying to rebuild.”

That pivot bought the Galaxy back to Costa, once among the world’s premier talents and a player Vanney wasn’t sold on, but one he thought still could be useful if he stayed healthy. Instead, Costa’s mostly been a disappointment, as has Kévin Cabral, another DP. The two, who will make a combined $4.65 million this season, have combined for three goals and three assists, which is a big part of the reason the Galaxy went out and got Riqui Puig from Barcelona last month. Puig is expected to make his MLS debut Friday against Seattle.

“If you have big names that don’t produce, what difference does it make?” Vanney said. “If Gareth Bale comes and doesn’t produce, then you’ll be talking about his lack of production like anybody else, right? It’s all about production and success.

“Big names are good for good stories but at the end of the day, we’ve got to win games.”

Winning is something the Galaxy had struggled to do before pounding Vancouver 5-2 on Saturday at Dignity Health Sports Park for only their second victory since July 8. The five goals were the most in a game since 2019.

Samuel Grandsir had two of those goals for his first MLS brace while Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, Efraín Álvarez and Victor Vázquez had one each. Hernández also had an assist and Julian Araujo had two as the Galaxy (10-11-3) moved back above the playoff line to sixth in the Western Conference table. Eight teams are bunched within eight points of one another in the battle for the final four postseason spots.

“It was a great performance for everyone,” said Vázquez, who scored his first goal of the season in the first game attended by his 8-year-old son Leo, who spends most of the year in Barcelona.

Before Saturday, eight of the last 10 goals the Galaxy conceded were scored in the first half. But against Vancouver, they ran to 4-0 lead by intermission and never looked back.

“We are a good team, but we have to start the games this way, aggressive with confidence and trusting each other,” Vázquez said.

Bale, meanwhile, didn’t suit up for LAFC on Saturday at Banc of California Stadium and was considered a game-time decision for Tuesday’s match with D.C. United. The same is true of defender Giorgio Chiellini, with both players essentially in preseason conditioning after arriving from Europe this summer.

“It’s pretty normal aches and pains in the middle of a preseason for a player,” LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo said. “Sometimes there are little mini-setbacks.”

But LAFC hardly missed either in a 5-0 rout of Charlotte. The win was the team’s sixth in a row, a club record, and kept LAFC (17-4-3) atop the Supporters’ Shield table and on pace to shatter the MLS single-season record of 73 points, set last year by New England. LAFC is averaging 2.25 points a game, better than the Revolution’s 2.15 in 2021, and needs to collect just 20 of the 30 points up for grabs in its final 10 games to break the points mark for the second time in four seasons.

Against Charlotte, LAFC got scores from Jesús Murillo, José Cifuentes, Carlos Vela and Cristian Arango, all in the second half. The final tally came on an own goal in stoppage time.

“The first half could have been sharper,” midfielder Kellyn Acosta said. “But the second half we turned it on because we were persistent and clinical in front of the goal. This showcased our depth and the talent of our team.

“For us to take it to the next level we need to have a more complete game from start to finish.”

Arango’s score in the 76^th minute gave him a team-high 12 for the season, with 10 of those coming in the last 11 games. Vela’s goal was his eighth of 2022 and he also picked up his team-leading ninth assist.

“When he’s healthy, he’s obviously important,” Cherundolo said. “His qualities are amazing. Carlos is our captain. And he’s a leader on the team.”

It was the ninth time LAFC has scored five times in a game but the first time they’ve gotten all those goals in the second half. On the other end goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau notched his career-high seventh clean sheet. In the six-game winning streak, LAFC has outscored opponents 18-5.

LAFC’s next two games are against D.C. United, the last-place team in the East, and San Jose, a point out of last in the West, which gives it a good chance to extend the winning streak to eight games. But Acosta isn’t taking anything for granted.

“A six-game winning streak, we’ve got a target on our back,” he said. “So you’ve got to bring it each and every game because teams are coming. The little details go a long way.

“We’re getting closer and closer to our goal, holding up the Supporters’ Shield and going to the playoffs. But we’ve got to take it game by game.”

Sparks’ travel woes offer lesson for Angel City

The Sparks’ WNBA playoff hopes pretty much ended when their commercial flight home from their final East Coast trip was canceled, leaving some players to spend the night in Dulles International Airport waiting for a ride home that eventually got the team to L.A. a little more than 24 hours before their next game.

Julie Uhrman heard the story and immediately began thinking about her team, Angel City. After Sunday’s win over Chicago at Banc of California Stadium, Angel City (6-5-3) is two points below the playoff line with eight games left. And the team’s next five games — and six of the last eight — are on the road.

Angel City, like the Sparks, won’t be taking a charter flight to any of them.

“That’s something that we would love to do going forward,” Uhrman, the president and a founding owner of Angel City, said. “It’s important to treat these professionals at the level of their counterparts and to provide them the access to recover and to be fresh for games.

“Travel is consistently a problem, certainly with COVID not going away.”

Teams in the top five men’s pro leagues in the U.S. all fly charters, which allows teams to set their own schedules and frees them from the vagaries of commercial travel. MLS became the last league to join that group during the COVID-19 pandemic, when traveling commercial was considered dangerous. COVID-19 infections have dropped, but teams still fly charter and it seems unlikely the league will return to commercial travel.

Cost and competitive balance are the reasons most commonly cited by leagues and teams which do not fly charter.

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in March it would cost the league $20 million to allow its 12 teams to fly charter during the regular season. It would be less expensive for the NWSL because its 12 teams each play 14 fewer games.

Allowing teams to pay that cost on their own would give them an unfair advantage over small-market teams that might not be able to afford the expense.

“Obviously there’s a business model behind this and we have to generate the revenue to justify increasing our expenses,” Uhrman said. “But at the end of the day we have to optimize for the best product on the pitch and how we support the players to get the best out of them. And travel is becoming a really big focus.”

As for Sunday’s game, Savannah McCaskill’s team-leading fifth goal of the season in the 48^th minute and three saves from Didi Haracic, who recorded her fourth clean sheet of the year, allow Angel City to end a two-game winless streak.

“Other teams are making that push to the playoffs, and that’s where we want to be,” coach Freya Coombe said. “It was essential for us to keep up. It was vital for us to get three points, especially at home with our busy travel schedule coming up.”

And finally there’s this …

Angel City has promoted Angela Hucles Mangano from vice president of player development and operations to general manager, where she will oversee coaching, player care, medical and performance, sports science, soccer operations, all wellness programs and resources, and the development and management of the team’s to-be-announced practice facility. Sporting director Eniola Aluko will move into a new role as director of recruitment…. The start of this fall’s World Cup has been moved up a day, to Sunday, Nov. 20. Traditionally, the host nation has played the first game, but this year’s tournament was scheduled to kick off with Senegal facing the Netherlands, with Qatar playing Ecuador later in the day. Last week a FIFA council corrected that and unanimously voted to move the Qatar match and the opening ceremony up a day as a stand-alone event … Atlas has gotten a lot of attention for ending a 71-year title drought in Mexico by winning back-to-back league crowns, but less well-known is the story of CS Cartaginés, the oldest team in Costa Rica’s Primera División, which ended an 81-year league title drought earlier this summer by beating Alajuelense 2-1 on aggregate in the Clausura final. That also ended a hex of indeterminate origin. The story goes that during the celebration of the team’s last league title in 1941, fans and players arrived drunk and on horseback at the Basilica of Los Angeles. As punishment a priest told them they never would be champions again until all the players who committed the sacrilege died. Another story attributed Cartagines’ championship drought to an evil-spell doll buried under the stadium’s turf. Neither spell apparently was air-tight because Cartaginés won five Costa Rican Cups, the CONCACAF Champions Cup and two other international tournaments since claiming its last league crown. Cartaginés has one win in six games in the Apertura.

In case you missed it

Unique World Cup start date changes how top players approach club season

World Cup start in Qatar moved up one day to Nov. 20

The world will be watching as Qatar hosts the 2022 World Cup ... for better or worse

Angel City’s international friendly with Tigres Femenil displays growth in women’s soccer

Podcast

Don’t miss my weekly podcast on the Corner of the Galaxy site as co-host Josh Guesman and I discuss the Galaxy each Monday. You can listen to the most recent podcast here.

Quotebook

“It’s naïve how we played. Definitely it is not the standard we want…We are in a really difficult situation, it’s clear. We have to find the source and then we have to find solutions.”

Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag after Saturday’s historic 4-0 loss to Brentford, its first to the Bees since 1938. Ten Hag is the first United manager to lose his first two games with the club in more than a century and the team has conceded six goals in its first two league games for the first time