pace-pushing forward Joseph Paintsill (quad) and havoc-causing, hell-raising heart-of-the-matter midfielder Riqui Puig (ACL), who will be out for weeks and months, respectively.

The Galaxy also traded Dejan Joveljic (21 goals in 2024) to Sporting Kansas City for necessary salary cap relief, benched goalkeeper John McCarthy in favor of the younger Novak Micovic (whose pair of impressive saves Sunday were overshadowed by a critical mistake that led to Anders Dreyer’s goal in the 52nd minute) and insulted veteran defender Maya Yoshida, whose reward for captaining the Galaxy to the title was a pay cut (salary cap relief strikes again!)

That left Gabriel Pec as the Galaxy’s only returning prolific scorer and thus the focal point of San Diego’s defense, which bottled him up, limiting the 24-year-old Brazilian forward to just one shot on target.

The vibes, so immaculate and unimpeachable last season, morphed into frustration Sunday.

The good and bad news: There’s a long season ahead, and so, so much work to do — all with the added benefit of having the defending champion’s target on their backs, a burden felt even by players who weren’t a part of the trophy-raising last season.

Such as Christian Ramirez, the striker from Garden Grove who made his Galaxy debut Sunday, finishing without a shot in 63 minutes: “It becomes a championship game for teams to prove themselves against us.”

Or against what’s left of them.

Still, Yoshida said: “We should have done better. Today is totally lost, defeat … after the game, they are celebrating like (they won) a cup final. We have to be ready for this.”

Coach Greg Vanney called his new-look team’s performance out of sync in every sense: “disconnected,” “disjointed,” “we weren’t very dynamic.”

“We didn’t look like a team that just won the championship,” he said. “We looked like a team that was fitting some things together still.”

Understandable, no?

But losing at home? No good.

“That’s what I said in the locker room: ‘This can’t happen,’” said Vanney, whose club’s last loss in Carson came on Oct. 21, 2023. “‘This is where we get points, this is where we win. We don’t lose at home.’

“Is it a rallying cry?” he asked. “It’s a wake-up call.”

Rise and try to shine, Galaxy. You’ll always have last season, but now it’s time to get up and get back to work.