It was pretty obvious, even before the LA Galaxy solidified its 2024 lineup with $20 million worth of designated player winger, that Riqui Puig would be key to its season.
Gabriel Pec and Joseph Paintsil did make the Galaxy more offensively potent, and their presence allowed Dejan Joveljic to truly flourish as a more unfettered and less occupied-by-defenders center forward. But it was clear that everything the Galaxy wanted to be in 2024 — which, given the disaster 2023 had been, started and sort of ended with improving into a playoff team — would run through Puig.
He ended up with 37 goal contributions and spearheading a remarkable turnaround of going from even-worse-than-2023-Austin to a Supporters’ Shield contender and MLS Cup finalist in a single season.
And then, he had to go and get hurt.
He did it in the most dramatic way possible: clearly affected by what turned out to be a torn ACL an hour into the Western Conference Final, and still remaining on the field until the final whistle, getting the match’s only assist with five minutes left in regulation to get his team to its first MLS Cup final in a decade.
(Be sure to read Alex Ruiz’s excellent Monday morning assessment if you want to know how rightfully distressed Galaxy fans are at the moment.)
In 2014, when the Galaxy last appeared in an MLS Cup final, it was at the tail end of an amazing run of three championships in four years led by Peak Bruce Arena. Riqui Puig did what some names you couldn’t believe – Steven Gerrard, Giovani dos Santos, Chicharito, and Douglas Costa – couldn’t do in the decade since Landon Donovan, Robbie Keane, and Omar Gonzalez (and Gyasi Zardes, who scored the Galaxy’s first goal in that final) got one for the thumb.
With Puig out for MLS Cup and likely much of 2025, No. 10 duties on Saturday will most likely fall to Marco Reus, the German legend who has only figured into 359 minutes of regular-season action since becoming a surprise midseason pickup. But as Ruiz told me via text, Reus has picked up a knock that may limit his action in Sunday’s final — or prevent it all together.
Which means, as you may have already surmised, that ex-Austin FC player Diego Fagundez could start the league’s championship match 16 months after leaving Austin, after being 90 minutes away from getting to an MLS Cup the season prior.
