Riqui Puig’s Galaxy, MLS champion!

In Riqui Puig as a reference throughout the campaign and as a notable absence from the final due to a serious injury, LA Galaxythe most successful team in the history of MLSregained his throne and glory this Saturday. The Los Angeles team won its sixth MLS Cup and its first since 2014, beating the New York Red Bulls.

A Galaxy had to wait a full decade to reign again, with the jersey, throughout its illustrious history, defended by stars such as David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Landon Donovan. Joseph Paintsil and Dejan Joveljic were the heroes with the goals in the final, but the dedication of their goals, both for a suit-clad Puig in the stands, perfectly reflected the former Barcelona player’s weight in the locker room of Galaxy.

At 25 years old, the playmaker had an outstanding regular season with 13 goals and 15 assists in 29 games. His outstanding playoff performance continued with 4 goals and 3 assists in just four games with some huge scores: 5-0 and 1-4 against Colorado Rapids, 6-2 against Minnesota United and 1-0 against to the Seattle Sounders.

However, in the Western final against Seattle the Catalan tore the cruciate ligament in his left knee, a brutal blow to the Galaxy’s finals aspirations and also a torpedo to the team’s morale a week before the duel against the Red Bulls. Puig was not on the field on Saturday but from the sidelines, smiling even though he probably would have given everything to play in the final, he followed the game closely and cheered his teammates on until they won the title.

Something like this, bringing together and fixing all the pieces of the Galaxy, has been done all year: setting the pace, greasing the attack, finding the final pass. Puig arrived in the US in August 2022 but that Galaxy is still the same as Mexican Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández.

The effect of the exculé was immediately noticed, but the Galaxy fell in the West semifinal in a colorful match against their great rival: Los Angeles FC (LAFC). In 2023, the Galaxy experienced another season full of disappointments and did not even qualify for the postseason, but for this 2024, everyone on the Californian team, with Greg Vanney at the helm as coach, is clear that Puig will be the master pillar that lifts the entire structure.

This is how two explosive wingers landed in Los Angeles: the Brazilian Gabriel Pec and the aforementioned Joseph Paintsil. Both opened up highways for Puig’s passes and Pec especially shined, receiving the award for the best signing of the year in MLS. The icing on the cake of a devastating offensive came from Joveljic as a striker. In all of this, the Galaxy is the highest scoring team in the West (69 goals) and only lost first place in its conference on the last day and, certainly again, against LAFC.

It has not been easy for the Galaxy to live with the amazing rise of their neighbors, who with the Mexican Carlos Vela as a star won the MLS Cup in 2022 and became finalists in 2023. Nor has it been a bed of roses this year. because, although the attack was a massive machine, the defense showed its weakness throughout the course despite the remarkable efforts of the veteran Japanese center back Maya Yoshida.

But in a playoff full of surprises and after the failures of titans like Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami, Puig and company fulfilled their mission and brought glory back to the Galaxy.