Galaxy part ways with veteran technical director Jovan Kirovski

The Galaxy have parted ways with technical director Jovan Kirovski, announcing the decision Thursday morning in a one-sentence, 16-word news release.

Kirovski, a former national team midfielder who made 62 appearances for the U.S., was an assistant coach on Bruce Arena’s 2012 MLS Cup championship team before joining the front office in January 2013, less than three weeks before former teammate Chris Klein was named president.

Klein was fired last May with the Galaxy headed toward their ninth straight season without an MLS Cup appearance, the longest drought in franchise history. Kirovski’s departure Thursday essentially closes the door on the Klein era.

Read more: Galaxy agree to most expensive transfer in club history to land Gabriel Pec

Kirovski, 47, who grew up in Escondido, Calif., was one of the first Americans to go to Europe and the first to play on a Champions League winner, helping Germany’s Borussia Dortmund reach the final in 1997. He returned to the U.S. in 2004 for the first of two stints with the Galaxy, eventually playing 104 games with the team, winning two MLS Cups and a U.S. Open Cup.

As technical director, Kirovski leveraged his European contacts to help the Galaxy land brothers Giovani and Jonathan dos Santos, Steven Gerrard, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Javier “Chicharito” Hernández and Riqui Puig. But the Galaxy have lost more games than they have won since 2017, making the playoffs just twice. Those poor results cost Klein his job last spring, and when Will Kuntz was named general manager last month, he began steering the team in a different direction, pursuing young Latin American talent rather than aging Europeans.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.