LA Galaxy announce initial roster decisions for 2023

The LA Galaxy announced their initial roster decisions ahead of the 2023 season on Monday, and all in all, there were not a lot of surprises.

The club officially exercised the contract options on seven players: Martín Cáceres, Séga Coulibaly, Daniel Aguirre, Jonathan Pérez, Adam Saldaña, Chicharito and Preston Judd. Of that group, three are starters — Cáceres, Coulibaly and Chicharito. In the latter’s case, his option was picked up automatically due to performance metrics that he met, which he informed reporters about during the 2022 season.

The Galaxy did not exercise the contract options on Jonathan Klinsmann, Richard Sánchez, Eriq Zavaleta and Víctor Vázquez, but they are in negotiations with all four players. They did not exercise Jorge Villafaña’s option, after he missed the entire 2022 season due to injury, and it does not appear he is in the club’s plans moving forward.

Sacha Kljestan is out of contract and it is unclear if he will continue playing professional soccer, let alone with the Galaxy, in 2023.

Meanwhile, 17 players are under contract for the 2023 season: goalkeeper Jonathan Bond, defenders Julián Araujo, Nick DePuy, Raheem Edwards, Marcus Ferkranus, Chase Gasper, Kelvin Leerdam and Jalen Neal; midfielders Efraín Álvarez, Gastón Brugman, Douglas Costa, Mark Delgado, Samuel Grandsir, Carlos Harvey, Riqui Puig and forwards Kévin Cabral and Dejan Joveljić. Combined with the seven players whose contract options were picked up, and LA have 24 players under contract for 2023.

Surely there will be movement, in and out, but this Galaxy team is fairly stable heading into the bulk of the offseason now. Obviously there are some conundrums around their Designated Player situation, with only one of three being productive last year, but we’ll see what happens, there and elsewhere on the roster moving forward.

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