In a team sport no player is irreplaceable. But for the Galaxy, Riqui Puig comes close.
Puig, the playmaker and leader of one of the most potent attacks in franchise history, will miss Saturday’s MLS Cup final with the New York Red Bulls at Dignity Health Sports Park after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in last weekend’s Western Conference final with Seattle. He will undergo surgery soon and is expected to be out until next summer at least.
And that leaves the Galaxy searching for a replacement for their most irreplaceable player.
“We’re definitely going to miss Riqui,” midfielder Mark Delgado said Tuesday. “Special player. He just brings something completely different that nobody can really bring.
“We just have to move forward. The game stops for no one and we just have to sort it out. And that’s Greg’s job.”
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Greg would be coach Greg Vanney, who was guarded in how he might alter his lineup in Puig’s absence Saturday. When Puig was unavailable during the regular season, Vanney used Marco Reus and Diego Fagúndez in his place. But Reus is dealing with a nagging groin issue and Fagúndez hasn’t started a game or played more than 17 minutes in one since mid-September. Other options include Delgado and Gastón Brugman.
“It’s going to be a different type of player than Riqui,” Vanney said. “Marco, we’ll see how his health is as the week progresses. Diego gives us a little bit of the option that we saw before. I also look at the Red Bulls [and] see them as a little bit of a unique competitor because of their pressing.
“We’re working through, talking through, the right personnel to try to approach the game.”
The Red Bulls, 11-14-9 in the regular season, finished seventh in the Eastern Conference table but went on a run in the playoffs, sweeping the defending MLS champion Columbus Crew in the best-of-three first round, then shutting out New York City and Orlando City in elimination games to become the lowest-seeded team ever to reach the Cup final.
The Red Bulls, who won just two of their final 14 regular-season games, dating to June 22, have given up only two goals in the postseason, with goalkeeper Carlos Coronel pitching three shutouts…