Unfiltered Soccer with Landon Donovan and Tim Howard
LA Galaxy GM Will Kuntz Talks the Financial Side of Soccer
Tue, 13 May 2025
What is happening with the LA Galaxy? On Unfiltered Soccer with Landon Donovan and Tim Howard, the guys are joined by LA Galaxy GM Will Kuntz to discuss the poor performance this season from the 2024 MLS Cup champions, the financial side of MLS and even gives an update on Riqui Puig’s rehab. The guys also discuss Minnesota’s win over Inter Miami, Liverpool fans booing Trent Alexander-Arnold, PSG knocking Arsenal out of the Champions League, and David Beckham’s comments about taking the captain’s armband during his time in LA. In the AT&T Mailbag, our hosts ponder your WHAT IF questions about the 2002 and 2014 World Cups, Landon’s time at Everton, and if Greg Vanney’s time at Landon’s old stomping grounds might be up! New episodes of Unfiltered Soccer with Landon and Tim drop every Tuesday. Subscribe to the show on YouTube and follow on all your favorite podcast platforms. For bonus content and to send your mailbag questions in to the show, follow on all social media platforms @UnfilteredSoccer. (https://www.unfilteredsoccer.com). Unfiltered Soccer with Landon Donovan and Tim Howard is presented by Volkswagen. Learn more at https://bit.ly/4g8bZG3. Thank you to our additional sponsors: AT&T. Connecting Changes Everything. Visit https://att.com/guarantee to learn more. Coors Light. Choose Chill. Get Coors Light delivered. Go to CoorsLight.com/USLNT NHTSA. Click It Or Ticket. http://www.nhtsa.gov/clickit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the current state of the LA Galaxy and their recent performance?
The LA Galaxy general manager, Will Koontz. The toughest thing about MLS is that the rules make it impossible to have deep rosters. If you lose a guy like Ricky Pooch, it's impossible to replace them. With a guy like Jovalich, in any other league in the world, a club like the Galaxy and where we sit relative to spend, it's like, you just, you just re-sign him.
Unfiltered Soccer with Landon and Tim, presented by Volkswagen. Volkswagen has long been a supporter of soccer in America and has proudly been a partner of U.S. Soccer for the past five years.
LD, my good man, I am super excited to be here. I got a beard trim yesterday, woke up at the crack of dawn two days in a row, covered a Premier League on NBC, which is amazing, and I get to come to you. I'm getting on a flight after this. And I'm heading to San Diego. Sunny San Diego.
God's country, baby. God's country.
That's what you say. And for people who don't know, with Unfiltered Soccer, we have lots of things we need to do. Content shoots, all the rest of it. And Landon oftentimes obliges and comes to New York City. So this time he gets his way and we're going to San Diego. So I can't wait to see you, bud.
Cannot wait to see you. My weekend was awesome. My dad came out to visit, watched all my kids play sports all weekend, flag football, soccer, baseball, all the things. Awesome weekend. I was exhausted. As you know, you wrote a book. Yes. I'm in the process of writing a book.
and it's almost done but just the editing part and reading it and then reading it again and deleting and every you want every word to be like perfect you know dude what a grind nobody tells you this you're like oh it's great i'll write a book and now i'm like this sucks dude dude it's it's a labor of love isn't it it's it has to be because i i remember i remember writing the book with ali benjamin who's my ghostwriter and i just i just remember thinking there's
I've buried some crap way down deep. I was like, I don't really want to bring this. It's arduous to have to relive some of that stuff.
And it's like, what do you put in? What do you don't? How deep do you want to go? And at the end, I was like, whatever, dude. Let's just throw it all in and we can cut it out. But now we're just...
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Chapter 2: How did Landon Donovan and Tim Howard react to Minnesota's win over Inter Miami?
But because he turned 26 this year, his budget charge jumped $500,000. And so even if I gave him $1,000 more, he's still a half a million dollars more expensive, right? On the cap. On the cap, right? So he's sitting there being like, hey, I just scored... 20 goals, whatever, I want a contract raise. And he deserves it. He deserves it, right? I would give it to you if I had it.
But the reality is to give you a $10,000 raise, that's a $510,000 raise on the salary. And so any offer I make you while trying to keep this team together is going to be... And I told him this. I was like, look, I can't offer you what you worth. I'll give you my best bowl. You're not going to love it, but it's just a math problem, right?
we're kind of having this conversation and all of a sudden tigris comes in it's like well good news we'll triple your salary right and and now we just can't compete right there is literally no way for me to triple down salary and then kansas city comes in and it's like well quadruple right and and it's even further away and look and one hand it's a great thing for day on he gets life-changing
you know bump and he deserves that but in any other league in the world a club like the galaxy and where we sit relative to spend it's like you just you just resign right you you sign the guys you have and you add on top of that and um it's the depth piece for me it's right so if ricky then gets hurt and you have to sell dan although we'll say christian ramirez has come in and done a really good job and really productive for us um and and a guy like marco royce is dealing with knee issues
and you've got schedule congestion early, it's like, you're down your DP, you're down your highest paid TAM player. You can't replace either one. And you had to sell your 20 goal striker. And then you also have to make decisions on guys like, You know, Marky Delgado and Gaston Brugman. And that's the way the league is designed, right?
We don't, we want to have sort of parity and want to make sure that nobody gets dominant, but it just becomes crushing in depth. And if you lose the wrong guys, it becomes impossible to catch up. Last year, on the flip side, we were really healthy, right? And we were able to run out Ricky and Joe and Gabe and the whole group a lot. And there's a continuity that comes there.
And the other piece of it, too, is because the rosters are so tight, if something happens to a guy like Joe Paintsill, then, all right, now we're using Diego Fagundes on the wing, which means we're not using him inside, which means you then have to sort of go further down the depth chart. That's one thing I think is really difficult because we have owners that are willing to invest.
And I think even with the money we're spending now, and you guys were talking about this the other day, you can have deeper rosters. But, man, it's really punishing if you have the wrong injuries in MLS.
Yeah. Well, let me ask you this because you are, I mean, that insight is incredible. And our listeners are going to be like just drooling because we are as well. There's so much that on the outside people don't understand. Now, my next question, though, I want to paint a picture for you. So I've been in MLS since 1998. I'm slightly older than Landon. He then came slightly after me.
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Chapter 8: What insights does Will Kuntz share about the financial and roster challenges in MLS?
The LA Galaxy general manager, Will Koontz. The toughest thing about MLS is that the rules make it impossible to have deep rosters. If you lose a guy like Ricky Pooch, it's impossible to replace them. With a guy like Jovalich, in any other league in the world, a club like the Galaxy and where we sit relative to spend, it's like, you just, you just re-sign him.
Unfiltered Soccer with Landon and Tim, presented by Volkswagen. Volkswagen has long been a supporter of soccer in America and has proudly been a partner of U.S. Soccer for the past five years.
LD, my good man, I am super excited to be here. I got a beard trim yesterday, woke up at the crack of dawn two days in a row, covered a Premier League on NBC, which is amazing, and I get to come to you. I'm getting on a flight after this. And I'm heading to San Diego. Sunny San Diego.
God's country, baby. God's country.
That's what you say. And for people who don't know, with Unfiltered Soccer, we have lots of things we need to do. Content shoots, all the rest of it. And Landon oftentimes obliges and comes to New York City. So this time he gets his way and we're going to San Diego. So I can't wait to see you, bud.
Cannot wait to see you. My weekend was awesome. My dad came out to visit, watched all my kids play sports all weekend, flag football, soccer, baseball, all the things. Awesome weekend. I was exhausted. As you know, you wrote a book. Yes. I'm in the process of writing a book.
and it's almost done but just the editing part and reading it and then reading it again and deleting and every you want every word to be like perfect you know dude what a grind nobody tells you this you're like oh it's great i'll write a book and now i'm like this sucks dude dude it's it's a labor of love isn't it it's it has to be because i i remember i remember writing the book with ali benjamin who's my ghostwriter and i just i just remember thinking there's
I've buried some crap way down deep. I was like, I don't really want to bring this. It's arduous to have to relive some of that stuff.
And it's like, what do you put in? What do you don't? How deep do you want to go? And at the end, I was like, whatever, dude. Let's just throw it all in and we can cut it out. But now we're just...
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