CARSON, Calif. – Jose Villarreal knows that 2015 could be a make-or-break year for him with the LA Galaxy, and he's aiming to take more responsibility with his hometown club after making just five first-team appearances late last year following an Aug. 1 return from a half-year loan to Cruz Azul.
Might he be Landon Donovan's replacement? The 21-year-old Homegrown attacker, who has played primarily as a withdrawn forward in three seasons with LA, has designs on the retired legend's position.
“We had a breakout season from Gyasi [Zardes], and we had Robbie Keane [win MLS] MVP, and Alan Gordon comes in and does his thing,” Villarreal said after the Galaxy's first preseason training session last week. “It's definitely going to be tough if I'm going for that forward position, and I can definitely play on the left mid, and that being a vacant spot for now, I'm going to try my hardest to gain that spot. If not, then we'll try something else, and we keep talking with the coaching staff, and they let me know what they want from me.”
Villarreal made 18 starts in all competitions in 2013, and he has six first-team goals for the Galaxy – three in 37 MLS appearances, two in 10 CONCACAF Champions League outings and another in a friendly against Real Madrid. But he saw more time with the LA Galaxy II in the third-tier USL PRO than with the first team after returning from Mexico City, where he failed to break in with Cruz Azul's first team.
That was not unexpected – the Galaxy rotation was pretty set when he got back – but he was on the bench for seven first-team games, including four during the postseason. He wants to do more than sit, of course.
“It's my fourth year in the league, so I definitely have to take a different approach to it and get ready and expect big things from Bruce and more responsibility for me,” Villarreal said. “I feel like I need this push to get me to the next level, and there's going to be a big chance for me to get more minutes this year. Definitely a big year for me to grow and see what's going to happen from here on out.
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“Definitely [I've] been growing more and more. Now I look at things a little bit differently. I'm getting older, as opposed to when I came in, when I was 18 years old. Every year I feel like I keep getting better at different things, and for this year, if it means improving drastically, then I'll do that.”
He says he's “here to play with the first team” but will take minutes with Galaxy II, if that's what the coaches want. Mostly Villarreal wants to see his game advance, and he plans to be a sponge around veterans such as Keane – and when he arrives in July, Steven Gerrard.
“I'm still young, so there's still so much to learn,” Villarreal said. “It's going to be a roller coaster for me, because we're going to have one of the best players in England to ever play with the EPL and Liverpool and the England national team. So it's going to be awesome for me. I'm excited to meet him and learn from him, like I did from David [Beckham]. It's going to be a good year, and I feel I can learn a lot from him like I did from the other guys.”
