LOS ANGELES (Saturday, Oct 5, 2024) – In the final home game of the 2024 MLS Regular Season, the LA Galaxy weathered a physical second half to beat Austin FC 2-1 in front of a sellout crowd of 26,574 fans at Dignity Health Sports Park on Saturday night. The Galaxy led 1-0 at halftime thanks to Gabriel Pec’s fourth consecutive game with a goal before Austin equalized early in the second half. Dejan Joveljić put the Galaxy back in front with a left-footed strike in the 76th minute, which was enough to see LA secure three points and stay atop the Western Conference standings with one game remaining.
With tonight's attendance, LA Galaxy fans have now set the regular-season average attendance record since 1996 for the club. An average of 26,135 fans attended LA Galaxy home games during the 2024 season.
LA Finishes Regular Season Unbeaten at Dignity Health Sports Park
In 16 matches played at Dignity Health Sports Park during the 2024 MLS Regular Season, the LA Galaxy hold an unbeaten record of 13-0-3 (42 GF; 23 GA). Notably, the Galaxy have won 11 consecutive league matches played at Dignity Health Sports Park (11-0-0) dating back to May 25, outscoring their opponents 31-14 during that span. In 17 games played at home (15 starts) (Dignity Health Sports Park & Rose Bowl Stadium) during the 2024 MLS Regular Season, Pec has totaled 21 goal contributions (11 goals, 10 assists).
Western Conference Top Seed in Play
Heading into the final match, the LA Galaxy can clinch the top seed of the Western Conference and secure home field advantage through to MLS Cup. A win in Houston on October 19 would be enough but an LAFC loss or draw in Vancouver on Sunday, October 13 would clinch the top spot for the Galaxy. The Galaxy are also on the verge of equaling their best points haul in the post-shootout era with 67 points (2011).
LA Galaxy Against Austin FC
Saturday’s MLS Regular Season home finale at Dignity Health Sports Park marked the eighth MLS Regular Season meeting between Austin FC and the Galaxy, with LA leading the all-time series 5-2-1. In 29 all-time MLS Regular Season home finales, the LA Galaxy hold a 15-6-8 record. In the first meeting between the Galaxy and Austin this season, LA fell 2-0 on the road at Q2 Stadium on April 27, 2024. Notably, the Galaxy are unbeaten in four all-time matches played at Dignity Health Sports Park against Austin FC (4-0-0; 10 GF, 2 GA). In six career regular-season appearances (2 starts) against Austin, Dejan Joveljić has recorded four goals and three assists. Additionally, Riqui Puig has registered five goal contributions (2 goals, 3 assists) in four career starts against Austin FC.
Goal-Scoring Plays
LA – Gabriel Pec (Riqui Puig), 31: Riqui Puig finds Gabriel Pec on the cross-field pass from the left of the center circle to right wing, Pec brings the ball down, beats a man in the corner before cutting inside and burying a left-footed strike to the back post.
ATX – Sebastian Driussi (Osman Bukari), 55: After a spell of possession up the right channel, Osman Bukari feeds Sebastian Driussi a cross on the ground and Driusi fires home the first-time strike with his right foot over the head of Galaxy goalkeeper John McCarthy.
LA – Dejan Joveljić (Riqui Puig), 76: Dribbling from the center circle, Riqui Puig finds Dejan Joveljić centrally at the top of the box, the Serbian international turns out to the left just inside the area and fires home a shot with his left foot to the upper portion of the net to put the Galaxy back in front 2-1.
Postgame Notes
- Through 33 matches played during the 2024 MLS Regular Season, the LA Galaxy hold a 19-7-7 record (68 GF, 48 GA; 64 points) and sit in first place in the Western Conference standings.
- Saturday’s match between the LA Galaxy and Austin marked the 8th MLS matchup with the Galaxy leading the all-time series 5-1-2 (14 GF, 9 GA).
- With the win, the Galaxy have gone undefeated at Dignity Health Sports Park in the 2024 MLS Regular Season.
- The Galaxy rank tied for second in MLS in goals scored (65) behind only Inter Miami CF (72).
- Gabriel Pec (29) and Riqui Puig (29) each have recorded at least 27 goal contributions this season, only the second pair of teammates to reach that mark in a single season in the last 20 years after Robbie Keane (33) and Landon Donovan (29), also for the Galaxy, in 2014.
- Gabriel Pec’s opening goal is his fourth straight game with a goal for the Galaxy and brings the Brazilian to 15 goals on his debut MLS Regular Season. He has five goals in the last six games.
- Riqui Puig’s assist on the opening goal by Gabriel Pec in the 31st minute and assist on Dejan Joveljić’s goal in the 76th minute makes Puig the 7th all-time assists leader for the LA Galaxy in MLS Regular Season play with 28 assists, passing Sebastian Lletget.
- Today marks Puig’s 6th multi-assist game for the LA Galaxy in MLS Regular Season play.
- Dejan Joveljić’s goal to put the Galaxy ahead 2-1 ties Gyasi Zardes for ninth all time for the Galaxy in MLS Regular Season goals and equals Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez for 10th place all-time leading goal scorers in Galaxy history in all competitions with 39 goals.
- Goalkeeper John McCarthy passes Matt Reis for 9th all-time Galaxy MLS Regular Season wins with his 18th victory since joining the Galaxy this past offseason.
Next Game
Next up, the LA Galaxy travel to face the Houston Dynamo at Shell Energy Stadium on Saturday, October 19 (6:00 p.m. PT MLS Season Pass).
2024 MLS Regular Season
LA Galaxy (19-7-7, 64 pts) vs. Austin FC (10-9-14, 39 pts)
Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024 – Dignity Health Sports Park (Los Angeles)
Goals by Half 1 2 F
LA Galaxy 1 1 2
Austin FC 0 1 1
Scoring Summary:
LA: Pec (Puig), 31
ATX: Driussi (Bukari), 55
LA: Joveljić (Puig), 76
Misconduct Summary:
LA –Brugman (caution), 8
LA – Puig (caution), 14
ATX – Hines-Ike (caution), 26
ATX – Valencia (caution), 30
ATX – Cascante (caution), 50
LA – Delgado (caution), 60
LA - Mićović (caution), 62
ATX – Wolff (caution), 87
LA – Joveljić (caution), 90+5
LA – Cerrillo (caution), 90+11
ATX – Biro (ejection), 90+13
Lineups:
LA: GK John McCarthy; D Miki Yamane, D Emiro Garces, D Maya Yoshida ©, D John Nelson; M Mark Delgado (Cerrillo, 70), M Gastón Brugman, M Riqui Puig, M Joseph Paintsil (Fagundez, 87), M Gabriel Pec (Aude, 90+8), F Dejan Joveljić (Berry, 90+8)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Novak Mićović; D Mauricio Cuevas, D Jalen Neal, D Eriq Zavaleta
TOTAL SHOTS: 15 (Pec, 4); SHOTS ON GOAL: 3 (Pec, Jovelić – 2); FOULS: 13; OFFSIDES: 2; CORNER KICKS: 4; SAVES: 4
ATX: GK Brad Stuver ©; D Brendan Hines-Ike, D Jon Gallagher, D Julio Cascante, D Oleksandr Svatok, D Guilherme Biro; M Jhojan Valencia (Ring, 70), M Dani Pereira (Zardes, 90); F Sebastian Driussi, F Jader Obrian (Wolff, 81), F Diego Rubio
Substitutes Not Used: GK Stefan Cleveland; D Matt Hedges, D Hector Jimenez, D Zan Kolmanic; M Osman Bukari; F Ethan Finlay
TOTAL SHOTS: 17 (Driussi, 4); SHOTS ON GOAL: 5 (Driussi, 3); FOULS: 17; OFFSIDES: 4; CORNER KICKS: 3; SAVES: 1
Referee: Ted Unkel
Assistant Referees: Corey Rockwell, Ryan Graves
Fourth Official: Drew Fischer
VAR: Kevin Stott
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 68 degrees
Attendance 26,574
All statistics contained in this box score are unofficial
LA GALAXY POSTGAME QUOTES
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH GREG VANNEY
On heightened emotions this match:
"For us try to win the west, finish the season at home unbeaten and there's a lot of things on the line for us. Strategically, obviously for them when Riqui (Puig) was able to slip away, they were certainly taking plenty of shots at him and so I think that also builds a little bit of emotion through the course of the game. Marc (Delgado) gets a piece of their guy in a transition play and it just kicked off from there, and as the game got nearer and the result was where it was, they took what I thought was a vicious shot at Riqui and one that's extremely dangerous. I was saying that there needed to be a standard set much earlier in terms of the types of fouls and the quantity of fouls that I think were on Riqui and started to set a standard, and the point here that this game was not going to get like that but it certainly did. There are moments where we get upset, we get emotional. We can't go on the field and do things that put us in jeopardy for suspensions and things like that. But it was a horrific tackle right in front of our bench. So certainly guys are going to react. There were moments where their players were talking to guys on our bench, too. We have to be able to control ourselves in the situation, as well, all of us included, everybody, because there's a lot on the other side of us that we continue need to continue to be mindful of. I don't think our group was expecting something like that. Maybe it's something we needed to go through to learn from it, but I love the fact that we were gritty enough to get it done."
On Mark Delgado's foul contributing to heightened emotions between both teams:
"Yeah, it was the foul in transition from behind. I don't think it's a foul that's going to hurt anybody but it ended up being maybe a little higher than Mark wanted. That was one of many fouls in transition through the course of the game on guys whether it was Riqui (Puig) or others. They took offense to it. Obviously they felt like it was worthy of something different. So that's when I think that reaction and everything else sort of led to some heightened emotions. Again, it was a little late and from behind. He didn't have a lot of power and studs up. He kind of hit him across the leg. There are reasons there to think it's yellow. I think there's probably reasons there to maybe consider otherwise but for me, it wasn't a tackle that's going to hurt somebody. It just wasn't. It didn't have that kind of force and it wasn't like studs up to the middle of the leg or anything like that. So that's at least what I saw from where I was. I'll tell you what I see when I go back and watch it again."
On Joseph Paintstil:
"What I saw, after a long sprint, I saw him sit down, I saw him stretching a couple times before that. I was trying to get Diego (Fagundez) a bit ready for him and then we had a defensive set piece, so I held on to it. Then he went on a big sprint and next thing I know, he was down and holding the back of his leg. Hopefully it's not serious. Hopefully it's something that is minor and we can get through this break and see where we're at. It didn't look great because the mechanism is a sprint. So we'll have to see once I communicate with the doctors and see where we're at."
On being unbeaten at home this regular season:
"The energy in the stadium, because that's a big part of it, the fans and you saw I think one of the biggest crowds maybe ever in this stadium, and an attendance record for the Galaxy since 1996. That just shows you the amount of support this group had this year, and they rode it. It's a relationship I think in the stadium. When the fans bring energy and the players are running and sprinting and competing and creating goal scoring chances, it feeds back into the energy of the stadium and we got that right this year. It helped us to get results here. Today was a different kind of result. I think we left some really good chances on the table in the first half that kept that thing a little bit hot but we did it a little bit different here today in terms of just being a little bit of a gritty, feisty, game didn't settle down a whole lot because of the way they were pressing and we weren't able to kill them off in some of the breaks they had. It's been a great year. That's something that this place, I always remember playing with and against the Galaxy that this was a place that was nearly impossible to get points out of, and tonight, or this year, we've been able to re-establish that again."
On the team being a contender:
"I think the team is a contender. I think the team certainly looks to be back. We've had a very consistent year. When we've had down moments, we've bounced back with positive moments and wins. I think those are signals of good teams. We have made home field, like you said, a fortress, which is a symbol of a good team. We have been able to grind out and get some good road points. Maybe some others along the way we would have liked to have gotten. I think we have all the signs that the club is back and in a good spot. And we have a young group that is going to continue to grow together hopefully and continue to go through some of these moments. Today has to be a moment that we have to mature from a little bit, and when we go through these next playoffs hopefully all the way to the MLS Cup, hopefully this group will learn from this experience, and then this group near will learn from Champions League and all these other things. I'll speak briefly about the 2017 Toronto team. That was a team that had a couple of years to grow together. It went to an MLS Cup in 2016, lost in a shootout to a team that didn't get a shot on goal in 120 minutes. The bad taste that it left in in that group's mouth going into 2017 was a huge motivating factor for where that team was at and how they went and did their business on that season. But that was a level of maturity that the group had to learn that this group is certainly taking on as quickly as we possibly can, and the playoffs are going to be another test for us to see again, through how most of the course of the season we've been able to mature and handle now the next phase of what's coming. Obviously, we have Houston and that's going to be an important game, too, with where things are at. But the playoffs are going to be a real test for us to manage emotions, still play the kind of football we want to play and execute in critical moments."
On the team's consistency:
"I think consistency is always a measure of whether your team is back or not back. You can have a couple of good wins and you're not back. This team is always able to bounce back from a bad moment. You typically bounce back from a bad half and show a resiliency, win games in some different ways but show some real excitement, and you can see the quality of the players that are out there and how they complement one another. There's a lot of reasons to be really excited about this team and now we have to buckle it down, finish the season, and then go after the playoffs. That's a big measure for everybody in this league. But we certainly have gone the ground work to give ourselves the best chance possible."
On the job not being done and decision day:
"We've got to go there and get at least one, I think. Our mindset is that we've got to try to keep our rhythm. It's been a really strange, I've said this many times, sort of tail end of the season where we had two weeks off because of when we went out in Leagues Cup, the restart, and then we had international break and then we had a bye week and this weekend and now we have another international break and then, you know, things are going to get going again. So managing this international window is going to be really important for us from a training standpoint, and then the Houston game is going to be, again, the kickoff to that final preparation for the playoffs. And the game has plenty of significance and importance, the way I look at it. It's a critical game. We have to go there prepared and we've got to be able to handle Houston and being on the road in the right way and get something out of there."
On takeaways from tonight's game and an ideal starting 11:
"I'm not too sort of focused on ideal 11. I think we've got a good sense of where we're at. Obviously, Marco (Reus) wasn't healthy today and available, and others to consider. I think we have a good team and I think it's going to take a good team to get through the playoffs. Figuring out what the right solution on a given day or against a given opposition, I hold the cards to be able to figure out what that might look like. I think what we learned today is that when teams have their back against the wall or when teams maybe compress us man on man or they are willing to take the kind of risk that they were willing to take, and Colorado did a little bit against us in the first half, it's better how to manage those situations a little tighter, take advantage of it when in the first half Joe (Joseph Paintsil) had an incredible chance early, plus a couple others. If you have a team that that's committed to the high press and man on Monday pressing, you have to punish them on the other side of that when you get your chances and that gives them a reason to have to sit back and protect themselves a little bit more. Today we have to take that, I think some of our emotional control, obviously, so that we can keep proper control of the game. I think it's going to be important. Some other things there, I just think it was actually probably good for us to have this type of game right now because the playoffs do have the potential to look like something like that. You know when the team gets down a goal and they have everything to play for and start throwing numbers high, start pressing high, and a lot of things can come out of that. It's important that we learn from this experience."
On four consecutive games with a goal for Gabriel Pec and his improvement:
"He obviously was a talented player when we got him and he's a talented player now. The evolution, and I've talked about this a bit. The evolution that I've seen and what we've been trying to work with him on is when he came to us from Brazil, he was very much a winger and a 4-3-3 who was heels on the sideline. The team's job was to get him the ball and he would go one-on-one and try to make things happen, and a lot of times he was in isolated one-on-one situations. He and I talked about that a lot. I wanted him to not just always be heels on the sideline. I want him to sometimes come inside, pick up the ball in the gap, but work in a relationship with two and three people to create different types of scenarios, not just him one-on-one all the time. I think he's really evolved in terms of understanding how to take up different positions in the attack, how to work with other runners and other players and not always be one-on-one. Also, when he is one-on-one, he's incredibly dangerous to be able to go inside or push it on the outside. I think he's added a few more layers to his game. I think in the first part of the season, he was just kind of standing out there saying, 'hey, I'm open, get me the ball.' It wasn't getting it to him as often and now he's way more involved and getting more touched over the course of the game; therefore, having more influence and more impact. The other thing that I think he's continuing to work towards is we've talked to him about finishing actions at speed. You know, there's a lot of times where he'll cut inside and he'll decelerate and try to hit the perfect shot and then it doesn't have any power on it. What I think we saw a little bit tonight was he was at speed on his finish, and he took it at speed and he hit it with power and low, and the keeper couldn't get down, and that's something we want to continue to take confidence in; that sometimes it doesn't have to be perfect, but if you do it fast, you're going to catch the keeper in a shift or not ready or oppositions or things like that. But he's evolving and he's having a lot of fun, and when you have a player that's that talented and having fun, they are dangerous for the opposition."
On Marco Reus:
"He'll be good. He trained with us for portions of the week, and because we have two weeks on the other side, we didn't need to risk tonight. But he'll be ready. He's in training and ready to go when we get back."
LA GALAXY DEFENDER JOHN NELSON
On the intensity of tonight's game:
“It was for sure a playoff feel. I've played in a few playoff games now in my career, and it was that chippiness, that edge, and Austin, they were fighting for their life. I think we could have maybe put the game away early; [we] missed a few chances but it happens. But the whole team rallied; guys came in, subbed in, and did well. I thought it was good for us to get into that to prepare us for the playoffs. Obviously, it was a close game, fight is breaking out, we're backing each other up. That's what it's about. I'm proud of the boys tonight."
On heightened emotions during the match:
“Yeah, I saw guys kind of corner Riqui (Puig). So of course I'm going to back up my teammate, and I started to push them, like nothing bad, just get them out of the way. And then I think it was once he honestly just straight-up head butted me, and I started bleeding. I don't know how the refs missed it honestly. It’s pretty bad from them. They said they looked at it, but nothing happened. No yellow, no red. So hopefully they can look at it after, I don't know. I don't want to say much, I don't know, but you've got to do better."
On his growth as a player this season:
“I would say I've just been a lot more confident, gaining minutes, gaining that confidence, but yeah, of course, I changed a bit just because playing with these guys, you've got to get used to them, the rhythm, playing with guys like Riqui (Puig), when he pops out, I move in, playing with Maya (Yoshida). But it's a joy to play with them. It's fun and it's fun to watch, too. But honestly, I would say the biggest thing is confidence for me. I've grown a lot. I think defensively, I'm solid back there, really solid, which I think this team needs, and then you know, when Greg (Vanney) allows me to go for it, I think I can give a good help to the guys, too. I'm really happy with how I'm performing this year.”
On being unbeaten at home this regular season:
“It's everything. You know, from the beginning of the year, our goal was to keep this place a fortress, and we did that. Credit to the fans for showing up this year, too, making it a tough environment to come in and play against. But it's everything, and this team is very good at home. You know, we are decent on the road, too. But when we play at home, I think we're a very tough team to beat. We're relentless. It's everything."
On the job not being done:
“Yeah, we just talked for a little. Celebrated but not too much because the job is not done, like you said. This team is focused, and I think the best thing we've done this year; we are not complacent. No one is comfortable and I think (Greg) Vanney has done a really good job to put that on us, no complacency. We are not comfortable. The job's not done. We've got to go to Houston and get a result, so we'll be ready."
On the LA Galaxy’s advantage:
“I would say that this team is really deep. The depth is everything. You need a deep team to be successful, and as we start a playoff run, I think every position, we're deep, and guys are already subbing in for injuries. I think the depth is the biggest thing of all the teams I've been on in my career so far."
