LA Galaxy 2022 Player Postmortem: Daniel Aguirre

Daniel Aguirre returned to the LA Galaxy for his second season in 2022, the holding midfielder looking to establish himself further on the squad.

Signed out of UC Riverside in 2021, Aguirre cut his teeth at LA Galaxy II and you could make a case he’s the latest player to go from “Los Dos product” to solid first team squad player, and in 2022, he didn’t get a ton of playing time, but he made a big step up compared to his rookie campaign at MLS level.

Here are Aguirre’s competitive stats with the first team in 2022:

The undisputed highlight of Aguirre’s season was his goal, in the win at the New England Revolution.

In fact, Aguirre had an offensive touch in limited minutes, with the goal and three assists to go with it. Consider that in the USL Championship, he has three assists across two seasons, and it’s rather surprising. Good, but surprising.

Aguirre also made seven appearances this season for Los Dos, all starts, as well. I think he was more of a first team player than a Los Dos regular, but his playing time was mostly mixed throughout the season, starting with Galaxy II, then mostly featuring for the first team in the summer, and then not playing much down the stretch.

I think that’s the only downside to his season, the Galaxy’s midfield makeover pushing Aguirre down the depth chart and ultimately out of the mix in the fall. Considering Aguirre is probably not pushing Riqui Puig and Gaston Brugman out of the lineup any time soon, it’s certainly understandable, but it may put his future with the Galaxy at risk, since his path to playing time has gotten longer.

Aguirre could move to a USL Championship team next year and be a regular starter, no question. I think he could also catch the eye of another MLS team, but it would depend on the situation to know if he’d get a better shot at playing time from there. On the other hand, I think Greg Vanney quite likes Aguirre under the circumstances, as a non-drafted, non-homegrown Los Dos player who’s broken through better than anyone the last couple years. Of course, “breakthrough” is relative, he still featured a little over 600 minutes altogether this season, so it’s unclear if he can continue to move up year over year.

We’ll see what happens for Daniel Aguirre. I think he had a very good season given there were no big expectations for him coming in, and perhaps he can make another big leap moving forward, too. Whether that happens with the Galaxy or elsewhere remains to be seen.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.