MLS Cup 2024: Finally LA Galaxy vs. New York Red Bulls

What’s old is new again – but somehow for the very first time.

As the final seconds of November slipped through the hourglass, a wild Saturday evening turned into Sunday morning, as Dejan Joveljić steered his final goal past Stefan Frei at Dignity Health Sports Park, we finally learned that our 2024 MLS Cup presented by Audi would be competing in December becomes. 7, the season’s 10-month marathon, reaches its finish line with breathtaking excitement in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs at opposite ends of North America.

For the first time in a decade, two MLS charter clubs are the last ones standing. And not just any originals.

The LA Galaxy and New York Red Bulls (the latter entering the world as the MetroStars) were considered the league’s flagship clubs when it began in 1996. Two years earlier, the most – and biggest – games of the FIFA World Cup, the paradigm-shifting event that was inspired the start of the new league.

Los Angeles vs. New York; Hollywood welcomes Gotham, bringing star power from Spain to Sweden, Serbia, Colombia, Ghana, Brazil and beyond. The founders of MLS would probably have seen this year’s final as a very palatable date for the showcase event. The fact that it took nearly three decades to come to fruition? Well, they might not have predicted this part.

“The feeling is – inexplicable, is that a word? Inexplicable?” asked Red Bulls’ young homegrown defender John Tolkin in the press conference following his team’s brave 1-0 win over Orlando City SC at the Inter&Co Stadium, searching for the right words to express what it meant helping his hometown club to only their second MLS cup final win of all time.

“I was overwhelmed with emotion at the end and I think everyone was too. And just pure exhaustion,” he added. “I’m just so happy for everyone and the work we put in and just the feeling and all the smiles. That’s why you do it.”

Tolkin, 22, was just six years old when RBNY made its only MLS Cup appearance. The Designated Player Rule was still brand new at the time, and the academy revolution that would provide talents like him with a development path toward a professional career was still years away.

But New York’s reputation for chronic underperformance was already well known. The disappointment was so relentless that fans invented a supernatural explanation: “The Curse of Caricola” after Italian defender Nicola Caricola scored an own goal in his first season. Even though the major RBNY teams finally received important hardware in the 2010s with three Supporters’ Shields, they remain one of only three founding members of the MLS that have yet to win the major title.

That’s why the grown adults in the away fan group cried when the Red Bulls finally got over the bottom on Saturday evening and Carlos Coronel & Co. defended their narrow lead from Andrés Reyes’ header as stubbornly as if their lives depended on it. A team that had come up short so often and so painfully, and that had attracted so few contenders at the start of these playoffs, was just 90 minutes away from its first championship, fueled by the ingenuity of an underdog.

“It’s an incredible feeling,” said RBNY’s star playmaker Emil Forsberg, whose R-rated creed was “Fuck it, we can win. Why can’t we?” – provided important inspiration on the eve of the postseason.

“Proud of the team, proud of the entire organization, also of the hard work behind the scenes, everyone is working so hard for our success.” I’m just so happy for the club, for everyone. But the work isn’t done yet. We still have one game. But like I said, why can’t we?”

The Galaxy will have something to say about that.

For much of MLS’s existence, they have been everything RBNY was not, a perennial contender and a globally recognized brand now en route to their tenth MLS Cup final in the league. But it has been 10 years since their last, a frustrating dry spell sparked by a sudden, drastic decline in performance following the departure of Bruce Arena, the coach and general manager who won titles in 2011, 2012 and 2014.

The Gs missed the playoffs entirely in three of the last four years and finished 26th out of 29 in last year’s overall standings, unable to build on the momentum from the Landon Donovan, David Beckham and Robbie Keane eras.

Climbing back into the MLS elite required a combination of patience (confidence in head coach Greg Vanney, an MLS Cup winner with Toronto FC and a standout member of the great Galaxy teams of MLS’s first decade) and urgency (the reportedly spent more than $20 million). on talented wingers Gabriel Pec and Joseph Paintsil to improve the front line last winter), steered by the capable leadership of general manager Will Kuntz, who arrived from crosstown rival LAFC in April 2023.

Hosting this final at their palm-tree-lined home in Southern California is both a euphoric breakthrough and a fulfillment of the expectations of the established players.

“I mean, we prepared for it. I’m happy but not surprised,” said Joveljić after the hard-fought 1-0 defeat against the extremely strong Seattle Sounders.

“Of course, from day one when I saw Pec, Joseph, Miki (Yamane) and other guys, I knew we had something special and that we were going to be good this season.”

This MLS Cup is also a duel of footballing opposites. Blessed with so much attacking firepower, the Galaxy appear to be more victorious barn-burners than nail-biters. They tend to go full throttle and go all out, orchestrated by the relentless maestro Riqui Puig, whose health will be a major storyline next week given his obvious malaise at the end of the Western Conference finals.

RBNY, on the other hand, has achieved this goal by adopting a more pragmatic approach to risk. After persistent difficulties down the home stretch, their German coach Sandro Schwarz developed a robust defensive stance to begin this postseason run. Organisation, intensity, quick transitions and little interest in the amount of possession – “we can control the ball without the ball, if that makes sense,” Tolkin noted – have led to an increasingly reckless upswing in form.

It has already dethroned last year’s stylish champions, the Columbus Crew, and promises to make this title fight next Saturday (4 p.m. ET | Apple TV – Free; FOX, FOX Deportes; TSN, RDS) a tricky task for the favored hosts .

“It’s fascinating to me that probably the two most aggressive teams in the West and the East, them on the defensive side and us on the attack side, made the finals in some way, shape or form,” Vanney said.

“The result is usually tenacious, defensive and hard-fought playoffs. So it’s interesting. It’s an interesting duel because they won’t be sitting at the top of their 18 players waiting for us; They will come after us and it will be a different challenge for us.”