Pascal Jansen expressed his desire to instil a winning culture at New York City FC, ahead of their first game of the 2026 campaign against the Los Angeles Galaxy. 

Having finished fifth in the Eastern Conference standings last year, NYCFC beat Charlotte FC over three matches in Round One to keep their postseason rolling on. 

NYCFC then defeated the Philadelphia Union 1-0 in the semi-finals before going on to lose 5-1 to Inter Miami in the final, with Tadeo Allende scoring a sensational hat-trick for the Herons, who went on to lift the MLS Cup. 

Though NYCFC earned plaudits for their showing in 2025, Jansen, who is preparing for his second full season in charge, wants more from his team. 

"To keep it simple, we did a pretty decent job last season, but we want more," Jansen said. "We want to be successful, which means we have to do better than we did last season.

"The first step has been put out there. We reached the Conference final, which was a good achievement, but at the end of the day, we did not win anything.

"So we are aiming to try and establish a winning culture, and that means that you have to be capable of winning more matches and to do that you have to be more consistent."

The Galaxy, meanwhile, endured a year to forget, finishing 14th in the Western Conference just 12 months after lifting their sixth MLS Cup.

Greg Vanney's side have already begun their 2026 season, opening their CONCACAF Champions Cup campaign with an underwhelming 1-1 draw with Sporting San Miguelito. 

It was a game they dominated, having registered an expected goals (xG) total of 2.08 from 18 shots, compared to their opponents' 0.32 from five attempts at goal. 

And speaking after the game at Estadio Universitario, Vanney conceded that his team have plenty of areas to improve on before welcoming NYCFC to Los Angeles. 

"We didn't take advantage of the situations we created, and they started to obviously throw numbers a little lower and try to clog some more things up," Vanney said.

"And then I felt like we became stagnant and stopped moving, interchanging and doing any actions that would create collaborative movements, third-man actions, things like that. 

"For us, our game needs to be faster. Our movements need to be better. So, these are things we’ve got to improve upon as we continue to move forward into the season."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

LA Galaxy – Joseph Paintsil

Having finished as the club's top scorer in the MLS last season, Paintsil will be hoping to hit the ground running with a goal against NYCFC.

Against Sporting San Miguelito, he finished the match with team-high totals for shots on target (two), successful dribbles (four) and total duels (11).

NYCFC – Alonso Martinez

Martinez scored nine goals in road matches in the 2025 regular season, tied for the second-most in a campaign in NYCFC history (behind David Villa – 10 in 2016).

Eight of those nine goals came in the second half, giving Martinez the most second-half road goals in a single season in NYCFC history.

MATCH PREDICTION: DRAW

The LA Galaxy have won their last two meetings with NYCFC after the Pigeons had won each of the previous four.

The Galaxy kept clean sheets in both wins after failing to do so in any of their first five meetings with NYCFC.

And they start the new season at Dignity Health Sports Park. All seven of the Galaxy’s regular-season wins in 2025 came at home, making them the first team with seven or more wins in a single regular season, all of which came at home, since the Portland Timbers in 2016 (12).

Including 2026, NYCFC have opened their season on the road in all 12 of their MLS campaigns. They have won only two of their previous 11 season-openers (D3 L6), having gone winless in the last seven (D2 L5) dating back to 2019.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

LA Galaxy – 39.6%

Draw – 26.6%

NYCFC – 33.8%