The LA Galaxy are in full preparation mode for the 2026 season.
Riqui Puig, who spent the entirety of the 2025 season recovering from an ACL injury, is back training. Maya Yoshida plans to go to Japan and to fully recover ahead of another long MLS season. And Marco Reus is looking forward to a full offseason after the short one the Galaxy had at the end of 2024 year after winning MLS Cup.
After finishing with 7 wins, 18 losses and 9 draws for 30 points in 2025 MLS Regular Season play, a third-place Leagues Cup finish, and a quarterfinal run in the Concacaf Champions Cup, the Galaxy are looking to rise back up to the success they had in 2024 when the club won their record-extending sixth MLS Cup.
The offseason will see the team stay together and train ahead of a November 15 friendly at Dignity Health Sports Park with Liga MX side Club América before entering the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup in February. The club will learn its opponents and fixture dates following the December 9 draw, putting extra emphasis on offseason training with the shortened preseason for 2026.
“For this year, some guys who gained some experience are going to be able to provide us some more depth and quality through our roster,” Vanney said. “We don’t want to necessarily reset with a new set of players. We're going to have a fair amount of new players that we’re going to have to reintegrate into our group.”
Without Puig in the midfield in 2025 due to his ACL injury he sustained during the Galaxy’s 2024 MLS Western Conference Final win, the Galaxy’s playmaking ability changed. Puig had 13 goals and 15 assists in 2024 MLS play. More of the playmaking fell on wingers/forwards Gabriel Pec and Joseph Paintsil, as well as 36-year-old Marco Reus in the center midfield during 2025.
In 2026, the Galaxy will get Puig back, pulling the strings in the middle of the pitch. Now back in training, the effects of Puig’s return are already being felt.
“What he sees is just different,” Vanney said of the Galaxy’s No. 10. “Some guys are playing the game when the ball arrives at their feet, and some guys know what the next three plays look like before they even happen, and Riqui is a guy who already knows what the game looks like before you come in his space. He's already started to orchestrate the next two or three moves.
“It gives Gabe (Gabriel Pec) and Joe (Joseph Paintsil) and these guys more confidence to just go because they know the ball is going to arrive. They’re not waiting for it at their feet, they’re not trying to play-make, they're now trying to finish actions. You start to sense that it starts to take the pressure off of some of those guys to feel like they have to do more because you can lay that onto Riqui’s shoulders. You feel that tension come out of the group right away.”
Pec is looking to return to the same form of his debut MLS season with the Galaxy in 2024 when he tallied 16 goals and 14 assists in league play to earn MLS newcomer of the year. He and Paintsil, who won the Galaxy’s golden boot for 2025 with 10 goals, are looking forward to Puig’s return but emphasized the need to step up in the absence of others.
“We have to do it together,” Paintsil said. “If one player is not there, there needs to be another player to step up and take that position. I think this season we’ve had to communicate and stand for each other and work towards it so that we become one team, one family and just work together no matter what if one player is absent we can still do it.”
