The Galaxy on Saturday will attempt to win their record sixth MLS Cup, and first since 2014, when they face the New York Red Bulls at Dignity Health Sports Park — though L.A. will be without its best player, midfielder Riqui Puig.
Puig suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the second half of last Saturday’s Western Conference Final. He continued to play for more than 30 minutes and provided the game-winning assist on Dejan Joveljic’s 85th-minute goal in the 1-0 victory over Seattle Sounders FC that put the Galaxy in the MLS Cup for the record 10th time and first since 2014.
Puig was selected for the MLS Best XI after scoring 13 goals and leading the team with 15 assists in 29 regular-season games. He was among four players in the league with at least 13 goals scored and 15 assists.
He also led the league in touches (2,847), passes attempted (2,847), passes completed (2,497), fouls suffered (83) and multi-assist performances (6).
In the playoffs, Puig had four goals and three assists.
“He’s someone that the opposition always has to account for in transition because the team is so good and transition through him,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “They also have to be really mindful of Riqui when they have the ball. We’re going to miss all of those things.”
However, Vanney was optimistic about the availability of midfielder Marco Reus, who was replaced at the start of the second half last Saturday and after 71 minutes in the 6-2 Western Conference semifinal victory over Minnesota United Nov. 24.
“Trending in the right direction,” Vanney said Thursday. “He warmed up with the group and then got into the work that he needs to and check all the boxes.”
The 35-year-old Reus had a goal and three assists in six regular-season games after joining the Galaxy in August after playing for Borussia Dortmund of Germany’s Bundesliga from 2012-24. He has one assist in four playoff games.
Gabriel Pec led the Galaxy with 16 regular-season goals, while fellow forwards Dejan Joveljic added 15 and Joseph Paintsil 10. With Puig scoring 13, the Galaxy became the first team in the MLS’ 29-season history with at four players scoring at least 10 goals.
Vanney attributed the feat to the players “committing to a collective project” and “sharing and setting each other up, trusting each other and knowing that when you set the next guy up, he’s going to set you up for the next one, and so on and so forth.
“And when you do that, everybody succeeds, and everybody has the opportunity to play at a high level and to help the team,” Vanney said.
The Red Bulls were 11-9-14 in the regular season and seeded seventh in the Eastern Conference. They defeated second-seeded Columbus, two games to none, in the first round, sixth-seeded New York City FC, 2-0, in an Eastern Conference semifinal and fourth-seeded Orlando City, 1-0, in the Eastern Conference final to become the lowest seeded team to reach the MLS Cup.
Midfielder Lewis Morgan led the team with 13 goals and was selected as the league’s Comeback Player of the Year after undergoing hip surgery in September 2023 and given a 20-25% chance of returning to peak performance.
This is the second time the Red Bulls have reached the MLS Cup. They lost to the Columbus Crew, 3-1, in 2008 at the then-Home Depot Center, now Dignity Health Sports Park, when the game was played at neutral sites.
This will be the record seventh time the MLS Cup has been played at Dignity Health Sports Park and third since it was switched in 2012 to the home of the team with the better regular-season record instead of being chosen before the start of the regular season.
The 1 p.m. game is sold out. It will be televised by Fox and Spanish-language Fox Deportes.
Rapper Warren G will perform before the game and at halftime.
After missing the playoffs three of the past four seasons, the Galaxy tied Los Angeles FC for first in the 14-team Western Conference with 19-8-7 records, but were seeded second because their plus-19 goal differential was one less than LAFC’s.
The Galaxy then defeated seventh-seeded Colorado, two games to none, in the best-of-three first round before their victories over Minnesota and Seattle.
The Galaxy are 16-0-4 in all competitions at Dignity Health Sports Park in 2024, including winning each of their last 14 games.
This is the first meeting between the teams since April 25, 2021, when the Galaxy were 3-2 winners in a regular-season game at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Vanney is in his fourth season as the Galaxy’s coach after coaching Toronto FC from 2014 through 2020, including guiding it to an MLS Cup victory in 2017.
He was a midfielder with the Galaxy from their inaugural 1996 season through 2001, then returned to them in 2008 for his final season as a player.
“I came back because I felt like I wanted the opportunity to try to help this club back to the legacy that was created from the very first year where the club was competing for championships and many since then,” Vanney said.
“The goal was to bring this club back to back to the top, where I think it belongs, and obviously, where the expectation is of them, and also to work with this group of players and all the players that I’ve had come through during these last four years to give them an opportunity to be in this moment and cement their legacy at this club because there’s a lot of big names who’ve played for this club, most of whom have won championships.
“This is the opportunity for this group to create that legacy for themselves. I’m excited for them to go out there and have this moment and compete for 90 minutes in a game like this. It’s a big lesson for these guys and I think they’re ready to go get it done.”