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GOAL!!! LA 2-0 RBNY (Joveljić 13)
Too easy. Dejan Joveljić takes the ball just past the midfield circle and carries the ball just to the left of the penalty spot, then slips the ball past a frozen Coronel. It slowly rolls inside the post.
He slides in celebration, emulating Galaxy great Robbie Keane.
The good news for the Red Bulls: The Galaxy sometimes concede goals as well as scoring them.
GOAL!!! LA 1-0 RBNY (Paintsil 9)
Now THAT was an incisive pass. Gaston Brugman plays a combination with a couple of teammates and then slides the ball straight ahead …
The pass catches Joseph Paintsil in full stride, and he immediately touches it past Coronel, who gets part of his body on it but can’t keep it out.
They celebrate by showing Puig’s jersey. Puig would be proud of that pass.
So the decision to start Brugman has … paid off. Nicely.
9 min: If you’re unable to watch right now, you’re not missing much. But the Galaxy have managed a long string of passes, albeit because the Red Bulls decided not to press.
And as I type that …
Peter Oh checks in: “With a name like Coronel, the RBNY keeper has got to be finger-tippin’ good!”
(A little KFC humor, in case you’re not familiar.)
Peter also asks what gig I saw last night. It was for a band called the Randos, and I had a very good view. I’m the bass player. (And occasional keyboardist, guitarist, singer and drummer.)
6 min: Dylan Nealis knocks down Paintsil to stop a Galaxy break the old-fashioned way.
I should point out that I live near Route 1, and traffic is consistently horrible. Not sure why anyone would try it in a soccer game.
3 min: The Galaxy dither over a throw-in like so many of the youth teams whose games I officiate.
They surrender possession to Coronel, who goes Route 1 to Lewis Morgan, but Garces is there to shut down the Scottish striker and suffers a foul for his trouble.
2 min: Not exactly pretty so far. Neither team has strung together a significant number of passes.
Kickoff
And the second whistle of the day is for a needless foul by NY’s Cam Harper on LA’s Gaston Brugman.
Officials …
REF: Guido Gonzales Jr. Experience includes the 2018 NWSL final.
AR1: Kyle Atkins
AR2: Logan Brown
4TH: Ismir Pekmic
VAR: Younes Marrakchi
AVAR: TJ Zablocki
RAR: Jose Da Silva
This the 29th MLS Cup final. The Galaxy also played in the first. The weather was a bit worse:
It’s national anthem time, in case you’re wondering why a game supposedly scheduled for 4 p.m. Eastern has not yet kicked off. I’m not asleep. I probably should be, having made it home from a gig around 2:30 a.m. Eastern, but not with this game on tap.
A lot of Red Bulls supporters have made the cross-country trip (or happen to live a bit closer).
Starting lineups
NY Red Bulls
GK: Carlos Coronel
D: Sean Nealis, Andres Reyes, Dylan Nealis
M: John Tolkin, Peter Stroud, Daniel Edelman, Cameron Harper
AM: Emil Forsberg
F: Lewis Morgan, Daniel Vanzeir
This is an unchanged side from the starting XI against Orlando City in the semifinal, in which Reyes scored the lone goal.
Apple TV notes that the Nealis brothers, Tolkin, Stroud and Edelman all came up through the club’s academy.
LA Galaxy
GK: John McCarthy
D: John Nelson, Maya Yoshida, Emiro Garces, Miki Yamane
M: Gaston Brugman, Edwin Cerrillo, Marky Delgado
F: Joseph Paintsil, Dejan Joveljić, Gabriel Pec
On Apple, Taylor Twellman is a bit surprised at the decision to bring in Brugman to replace the injured Riqui Puig but notes that fellow Uruguayan Diego Fagundez is being stashed on the bench for use at a variety of positions depending on how the game shakes out. Marco Reus, who started in the semifinal, also is on the bench, with Delgado in his place.
Joveljić had the lone goal in the 1-0 win over Seattle in the semifinal.
Other than Brugman and Delgado, the other starters also started in the semi.
The Red Bulls counter with …
… people who aren’t quite household names.
A club that had Tony Meola and Tim Howard in goal now has Carlos Coronel. Surely you all know him from his handful of appearances for Paraguay, right?
If you do know Coronel, though, you know he’s capable of the spectacular.
The Red Bulls have had no shortage of stars over the years, dating back to their launch as the MetroStars. Thierry Henry. Lothar Matthäus, Bradley Wright-Phillips, now on Apple TV. Juan Pablo Angel. Clint Mathis. Tab Ramos. Claudio Reyna.
Today, the key scorer is Lewis Morgan, who came to MLS via Inter Miami after some unproductive time at Celtic. Sometimes, though, players simply blossom in the right environment, and New York (well, New Jersey, technically) has been that environment for him.
Morgan is one of three players Transfermarkt assesses at 5m Euros. Another is the captain, Emil Forsberg, who has 21 goals for Sweden in his long career. He came to New York at the beginning of 2024 after a long run at the other Red Bull (Leipzig).
Bold statement from longtime Galaxy driving force Landon Donovan on Apple’s pregame show, saying that the Galaxy’s offense – including Gabriel Pec, Dejan Joveljić, Joseph Paintsil and the unfortunately absent Riqui Puig – might be the best the league has ever seen.
Want to chime in?
Yes, I’m on BlueSky, so if you don’t feel like writing a whole email, yell at me there.
Preamble
After a decade of dizzying change and expansion, MLS has an OG MLS Cup.
The LA Galaxy have won this thing five times. Just not recently.
The New York Red Bulls have never won this thing. They’ve been waiting a long, long time. And if you go by how these teams look on paper, they’ll be waiting a bit longer. But that was said about their previous playoff rounds, wasn’t it?
It’s another beautiful day in Southern California for a calendar-defying warm-weather championship game. Get the sunglasses and sunscreen and get ready to watch.
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s Graham Ruthven’s take on today’s final.
