St. Louis show no mercy, LAFC show no evolution (yet) & more | Matchday 29

Eighty percent of the year in the books! One month left! That means we know who everybody is… except for one team.

Let’s dive in:

Bad Optics

The big news over the international break was LAFC's front office parting ways with head coach Marc Dos Santos, which came a couple weeks ago following a 1-0 loss at FC Dallas. That made it just one win in 10 from a Black-and-Gold side that had started off the year with dreams of not only trophies, but of evolution.

They had become – or been, for a long time, depending on how you want to frame it – too one-note, especially in big games against big teams. To borrow a bit from Backheeled's Andrew Clausen that I've quoted here before:

The problem is, everyone knows that’s LAFC’s plan when they play LAFC. Their opponents are well aware there isn’t another plan besides Plan A. I’m not even sure there’s a variant to Plan A. The result? Teams are prepared to deal with LAFC, a fact that’s been clearly illustrated by their recent results... What LAFC’s dropped points have in common is this: when the game calls for them to dictate play, they can’t. Whether it’s breaking down an opponent, or protecting a lead, they don’t control the flow of the game. They are the ultimate ‘moments’ team.

That made the big question heading into this weekend was what LAFC would look like under interim head coach **checks notes** Xavier Tamarit, a man so obscure that he literally does not have a Wikipedia page. Tamarit, a Spaniard who’s spent time holding the clipboard in his home country, but also in Greece and several stops in South America, only came on board this past winter as one of Dos Santos’s assistants.