The Galaxy are back.
After a decade-long slump in which it lost almost as many games as it won, the team capped an improbable rise from near-worst to first Saturday, capturing a record sixth MLS Cup with a 2-1 victory over the New York Red Bulls at Dignity Health Sports Park.
With playmaker Riqui Puig, who tore the ACL in his left knee in last week’s Western Conference final, watching from the sideline the Galaxy won behind early goals from Joseph Paintsil and Dejan Joveljic and a stout performance from a defense that was tested all afternoon. The team then mounted a hastily erected stage at midfield to accept the Philip F. Anschutz Trophy, named for the team’s founding owner.
A year ago the Galaxy won only eight games and finished 13th in a 14-team conference. With Saturday’s victory, which came 10 years to the day after their last MLS Cup win on the same field, the Galaxy became the first team in 23 years to go from eight or fewer wins to a league title in one season.
A victory celebration is scheduled for 3 p.m. Sunday at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Paintsil and Joveljic were both playing youth soccer, Paintsil in Ghana and Joveljic in Serbia, when the Galaxy won their last title in 2014. The team began a quick decline after that, a slide that bottomed out last season when the Galaxy fired longtime president Chris Klein amid an embarrassing fan boycott that saw the club’s most loyal supporters refuse to attend matches.
Yet that begat one of the greatest turnarounds in league history, which started with the hiring of Will Kuntz as senior vice-president of player personnel. In 16 months Kuntz, who was promoted to general manager last December, completely remade the roster, signing 10 of the 13 men who played in Saturday’s final.
It then fell to coach Greg Vanney to turn those players into the team that won 24 MLS games, including playoffs, this season. The Galaxy were especially impressive in an unbeaten postseason, scoring a league-record 18 goals in five games, one more than Vanney’s Toronto team scored in six playoff games in 2016.
Puig, who played an indispensable part in the Galaxy’s run to the title, had to watch his teammates take the final steps to the title from a seat near the Galaxy bench. He wasn’t forgotten with both Paintsil and Joveljic saluting him after scoring goals in the opening 14 minutes.
Paintsil put the Galaxy in front to stay in the ninth minute at the end of the sequence that started with midfielders Edwin Cerrillo and Gaston Brugman working a give-and-go high in the Red Bull end. Brugman, who was starting in Puig’s place, then threaded a Puig-like pass through the heart of the defense to Paintsil at the top of the box and the Ghanaian did the rest, sliding his shot under goalkeeper Carlos Coronel.
Paintsil celebrated the goal by holding up a Puig jersey.
After Joveljic doubled the advantage four minutes later on an assist from Mark Delgado, he performed a somersault in the penalty area, then ran away from his teammates and bowed toward Puig on the sidelines.
The two goals in 13 minutes matched what the Red Bulls conceded in their first four playoff games combined. They got back in the game in the 28th minute on Sean Nealis’ sidewinding right-footed volley through traffic, but they could get no closer despite a wild flurry of action in the Galaxy penalty area in stoppage time.
The Red Bulls, like the Galaxy an original MLS franchise, were playing in their second Cup final and first since losing to Columbus on the same field in Carson 16 years ago.
The team won just two of its final 14 regular-season games to enter the Eastern Conference playoffs as the seventh seed, the lowest-seeded team to reach the MLS Cup final. To celebrate its return to the championship game, the team brought its entire front office to Carson, buying 2,200 tickets for staff, supporters and season-ticket holders who filled half the top deck, turning the stadium’s east grandstand into a sea of Red Bull red.
The Victoria Block behind the north goal, meanwhile, was blindingly white, packed with Galaxy fans in their team’s traditional home jersey. Behind the supporters sat 13 members of the franchise’s last MLS Cup championship team while men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino was also among the crowd of 26,812, watching from a suite above the west sideline.
The midday matinee kicked off in 75-degree temperatures under cloudless skies, making it the seventh outdoor MLS Cup final played in temperatures of 70 degrees or higher. In Harrison, N.J., where the Red Bulls play, it was 40 degrees and overcast.