The most impactful player in Saturday’s MLS Cup final won’t even be on the field at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Riqui Puig, the dynamic midfielder who makes the Galaxy’s offense go, has been limping around the team’s training sessions on crutches this week after tearing the ACL in his left knee in the Western Conference final. And his absence from the Galaxy lineup will change the way both teams approach the game.
For Galaxy coach Greg Vanney, it means having to find a replacement for the team’s most irreplaceable player. For the New York Red Bulls, Puig’s absence will influence the way they prepare for the game.
“He’s a very good player, a key player. But they have a lot of good players,” said German-born coach Sandro Schwarz, who is in his first year with the Red Bulls. “They have won a lot of games, especially at home in their stadium. So this is a challenge for us.”
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“This is my job,” he added. “To find the solution for Saturday.
On paper, the matchup looks like a mismatch.
The Galaxy, who won just eight games a year ago, finishing 13th in a 14-team conference, are 23-8-7, including playoffs, this season and are conference champions for the first time since 2014. They are chasing their sixth MLS title and they’ll be playing at home, where they’re unbeaten in 19 games in all competition.
The Red Bulls, an original MLS team, are seeking their first title in their second appearance in the championship game. They went 11-9-14 during the regular season, winning only two of their final 14 games to enter the Eastern Conference playoffs as the seventh seed. But once they got there they went on a run, eliminating defending champion Columbus on penalty kicks before shutting out New York City and Orlando City to become the lowest-seeded team to reach the MLS Cup final.
“Maybe for a lot of people outside this club, it’s the biggest surprise,” said Schwarz, whose goalkeeper Carlos Coronel has had a hot hand in the playoffs, making 19 saves. “I would say also that we played most of the time in regular season in a very good spot, a very good quality. When you start the playoffs and you get the results, for sure it makes something with the team to get the confidence.
“This is the final, the MLS Cup final. Now it’s crunch time and we have to show our quality.”
If they win Saturday, the Red Bulls will join D.C. United from 2004, the 2006 Houston Dynamo and the 2009 Real Salt Lake team as the MLS champions with the fewest regular-season victories.
The Red Bulls like to press high, frustrating opposing offenses and taking advantage of turnovers or set pieces to score.
“We have to find our moments with the ball or in transition,” Schwarz said.
Read more: How will the Galaxy offset the loss of Riqui Puig in MLS Cup final?
The wide-open, possession-based Galaxy are just the opposite. This season they became the first MLS team to have four players score in double figures with Puig, Dejan Joveljic, Joseph Paintsil and Gabriel Pec combining for 69 goals and 52 assists, including playoffs. The Galaxy have outscored opponents 16-3 in the playoffs, breaking the league record for most goals through four games in a single postseason.
But all that happened with Puig quarterbacking the offense. Without him, Vanney is likely to get his defenders more involved in the passing game while taking few risks in the midfield.
“We have to redefine who we are going to be and how we’re going to win this game without someone like Riqui on the field,” Vanney said of his talisman, who had career highs for goals (17) and assists (18) and led the league in passes this year.
Marco Reus, who was playing in the Champions League final for Borussia Dortmund six months ago, is the most likely replacement but he’s been slowed by a groin injury. He returned to training Wednesday although his availability for Saturday could be a game-time decision.
Diego Fagundez is also an option but he hasn’t started or played more than 17 minutes in a game since Sept. 14. That leaves Mark Delgado as the fittest replacement yet he pales as a playmaker compared with the other two.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
