CARSON, Calif. -- Jack McBean signed with the LA Galaxy a little more than a month after his 16th birthday, made his MLS debut with a goal at the end of his first year, scored three more as a 17-year-old in CONCACAF Champions League play, and made 10 first-team competitive starts and netted three goals a year ago.
Things haven't gone so smoothly for the teenage striker in 2014, and that's one reason it's been the most vital year in his young career.
McBean, who will turn 20 in December, endured a difficult campaign with LA Galaxy II, more so than any of the Galaxy veterans who spent most of all of the spring and summer with the new reserve team in the third-division USL PRO.
That's not a bad thing, Bruce Arena notes.
“It's all part of [development]. … These are all positive experiences,” LA's head coach said. “Jack's a young player, needs to play more, still has a way to go. He's moving along and he's being challenged as to where he is at this point in his career and is he committed to do the things he has to do to get better.
“It's all out in front of him. It's been a good year for him, because he clearly knows where he stands and where he needs to go.”
McBean was among nine Galaxy first-team players who spent most or all of the USL PRO campaign with “Los Dos,” and he endured a tougher campaign than the others and went through more growing pains.
“It's a real season, 28 games, you've got to deal with a lot of stuff,” Galaxy II head coach Curt Onalfo said. “How do you take those experiences and bring it to next year to [where] now you're doing it consistently, you're performing consistently, regardless of what your role is. That's how you improve.”
McBean finished with six goals and six assists in 29 competitive appearances for Galaxy II -- one of his goals was in the US Open Cup -- but he didn't hit the net from early June through the Sept. 6 regular-season finale, in which he scored twice.
“It's hard when you're not scoring goals, which I wasn't for several months of the season there, and it's frustrating, and you have chances and you're just missing them, you know?” McBean said. “Working almost every day after training, finishing and doing stuff, and it wasn't really translating to the games. Then to score a couple goal in the game there was awesome.
“That's the way the game goes sometimes. You can have a bad game and score two goals or you can have a good game and miss a couple of chances. And you feel like you had a bad game because of it. It's hard, but you get through it.”
McBean said the going through “the real ups and downs of a full season” was valuable, and the result is he has “more confidence, more knowledge of the game. Defensively, I thought I got a lot better. … I can step in an MLS game and perform.”
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Onalfo saw that growth.
“Jack had some struggles, he fought through it and he finished strong,” he said. “I think that is what [forming Galaxy II] is for. He would never get that opportunity with the first team, and he wouldn't get it over 10 games with the reserve team [as it previously existed].
“In anything you have to achieve in life, you're going to have adversity that you have to overcome, so I look at that as a huge positive. It's still up to the players how they take that to help their careers progress.”
Arena said no decisions have been made on where McBean will play next year, although another campaign with Galaxy II seems likely. McBean just wants to keep moving forward.
“I'm just going to work hard, try to stay positive with the things going on around me, and control what I can control …,” he said. “I'm just taking it day by day. I have no idea what could happen tomorrow. I love it here, and I'm happy here, but just try to take it day by day.”
