The LA Galaxy have named Will Kuntz as general manager as they attempt to return to the top of Major League Soccer.
The Galaxy have missed the playoffs in five of the last seven years, a dire record for a team that won three MLS Cups in four years a decade ago. The Galaxy advanced to the Western Conference semifinal in 2022 before falling apart this year, finishing 13th in the West. Now, they will turn to Kuntz, who was hired as senior vice president of soccer operations last spring, to turn things around.
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Kuntz will be responsible for soccer operations from the first team through the academy, including all aspects of roster building — scouting, player acquisitions, salary cap and budgets — and will report directly to AEG president and CEO Dan Beckerman. LA head coach Greg Vanney, who stepped into the sporting director role last December when former club president Chris Klein was suspended by MLS, will report to Kuntz.
Kuntz has long been considered one of the top up-and-coming front office executives in the league, and one with a unique background. He joined the Galaxy after spending the previous six seasons with crosstown rival LAFC as the senior vice president of soccer operations and assistant general manager. Before that, he worked in the MLS league office in the player department. Kuntz landed in MLS in 2014 after spending the previous 10 years working with the New York Yankees, ultimately working his way up to manager of professional scouting.
Now, Kuntz will have an opportunity to guide one of the marquee clubs in MLS.
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“The plan is to get the Galaxy back to the upper strata of the league and the position we used to occupy,” Kuntz told The Athletic in a phone interview on Monday. “We will try to do it in a way that’s a little bit different than the way our organization has done it historically and more in line with what the most successful clubs in the league in the past few years have done.”
While Kuntz now steps into the top chair in the front office, he said the division of labor won’t change drastically and that relationships throughout the front office are strong. Vanney can now focus on coaching, while others in the sporting department, which includes longtime technical director Jovan Kirovski, will continue in their respective roles.
“How we operate on a daily basis, it’s been collaborative,” Kuntz said. “It’s not like there are my players or Greg’s players, it’s our players, everyone is agreed upon, we all talk about what we need, we talk about what we are looking for in terms of profile, budget. It’s a collective, collaborative decision and that is greater than just Greg and myself, it includes the technical staff, assistant coaches, sport science, high performance … our scouts, our soccer operations staff. Everyone has got a seat at the table. it will continue to be a collaborative process just like it has been in the eight months I’ve been here.”
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Getting the Galaxy to be a force again won’t be an easy task in the short term, with most of the Galaxy’s senior roster spots being occupied. However, the Galaxy do have some important building blocks to compete in 2024. Most notably, they have two open designated player spots after the departure of forward Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez and winger Douglas Costa. Midfielder Riqui Puig currently occupies one DP spot. The Galaxy have a pair of U-22 initiative players in Julian Aude and Dejan Joveljic, but could add another one in the January window.
With a ban on international signings last summer, the Galaxy acquired winger Diego Fagundez from Austin FC, midfielder Edwin Cerrillo from FC Dallas and signed center back Maya Yoshida as a free agent. Those three remain in the squad as they rebuild again this winter around Puig and two new DPs.
Kuntz indicated that the Galaxy will more likely look to use those designated player spots on younger or in-their-prime players rather than on big-name stars at the end of their careers, as the club has historically done in the cases of Chicharito, Steven Gerrard, Robbie Keane, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and others.
“The most important things for us are on-field quality and availability,” Kuntz said. “Time and gravity are undefeated. By the nature of being older, the odds of a guy being able to come to this league and manage travel, manage playing through the summer, manage the schedule congestion of Leagues Cup, those odds get longer the older you get.”
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Kuntz noted that LAFC has signed bigger-name players like Gareth Bale and Giorgio Chiellini as non-DP players and believes the LA market could give the Galaxy that type of flexibility in the future, too.
In this window, however, the focus is on finding two designated players that can lift the Galaxy back into contention.
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“We are in a very good place with respect to what we are looking for and what our plan is,” Kuntz said. “One of the few silver linings of not qualifying for playoffs is we get more time to do our planning and figure out exactly what we want to be doing in the international market. We have a very good list of targets and we’ve got support from our ownership to go get those guys who we believe are good profile fits.”
Kuntz noted that he hopes to “capitalize on the momentum that has been established by Greg and even preceding Greg” in the Galaxy academy in aim to use the LA market to produce homegrown players. Vanney has a strong history in player development and is a “huge advocate” for the academy, Kuntz said, and the Galaxy have several homegrown players on the current roster, including center back Jalen Neal, who started 14 games in 2023 and earned multiple USMNT call-ups.
Kuntz also is now one of the only Black executives at the top of a sporting department as coach or GM for an MLS club.
“The U.S. lags behind the world with respect to Black participation in the player population, but I think we can be a shining example with respect to coaches and executives,” Kuntz said. “I’m very excited about the work being done in the league office, particularly with respect to MLS ADVANCE, which is striving to increase the representation of not just Black people, but minority and underrepresented groups at the coach and executive level.”
This March will mark 10 years for Kuntz since leaving a promising career in baseball for MLS. Now he’ll have a chance to lead the Galaxy — the first club he worked with while in the player department in MLS, and one he said he dreamed of one day leading.
“I certainly feel ready for it, but could not be more excited about the opportunity,” Kuntz said. “My journey has been awesome. From my time at the league office, to my time at LAFC. You always take a little bit of every place that you are. Everything I’ve done up until now has made me even more ready for this.”
(Photo: Robert Mora/LA Galaxy)
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