PASADENA — There was no clowning around at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday.
Setting a Major League Soccer attendance record, the 20th El Trafico derby was as fierce as the city has come to expect when the L.A. Galaxy and Los Angeles Football Club ram into one another.
The hot Fourth of July crowd topped out at 82,110 as the hosting Galaxy, thanks in large measure to young Spanish midfielder Riqui Puig, edged LAFC 2-1.
Puig’s game winner in the 73rd minute gave the second-year Galaxy star, an All-Star in 2023, more room to brag after he was criticized for celebrating too hard in a U.S. Open Cup win in May over what was essentially an LAFC team mostly composed of prospects.
Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini called Puig a clown that night — he apologized privately and publicly — because he wanted to defend the kids who put on an LAFC jersey that night.
But on Tuesday Puig’s goal plus an assist on the Galaxy’s first score could not be dismissed against a first-choice LAFC team.
He was clearly the best player on the field.
Unfolding on Independence Day because the scheduled season opener was postponed due to inclement weather last February, the Galaxy had not played a competitive match at the Rose Bowl since an MLS Cup semi final contest against the Colorado Rapids in front of 24,742 fans on Oct. 5, 2002 — the first of their five league championship seasons.
Two decades later the rivalry, which would have been unfathomable while the Galaxy helped forge American professional soccer during its formative years playing in Pasadena, topped the previous attendance record set on March 5, 2022, when the Galaxy squared off against Charlotte FC in front of 74,479 fans at Bank of America Stadium.
Close to an even split inside the Stadium, the crowd was primarily decked out in Galaxy white or LAFC black, making the partition easy to see.
Supporters on both sides stood and chanted from behind the opposing goals, and had good reason to raise their voices.
Tyler Boyd put the Galaxy ahead in the eighth minute, with his third finish against LAFC in 2023, another line drive that hit the back of the net.
LAFC got back into the match in the second half, when Ilie Sanchez headed in a goal off a corner kick to the near post.
The goalkeepers did their part keeping the match level until Boyd’s finish in the 26th minute.
John McCarthy, celebrating his 31st birthday, denied Puig eight minutes in with a stretching, lunging save after the Spaniard found himself clear inside the six-yard box for the first of his four saves.
Less than 10 minutes later it was Jonathan Bond’s turn to keep the match scoreless.
The English keeper saved a goal — and perhaps himself — when a rocket of a volley off the right foot of Denis Bouanga fizzed toward his head.
Instinctively, Bond raised his hands to redirect the ball over the net for one of his four saves. Jonathan Klinsmann replaced Bond in the second half, and recorded another three saves.
With the victory, the Galaxy improved its all-time series mark against LAFC to 9-6-5, once again dominating on their home field (8-1-2).
In 108 all-time regular-season and playoff games played at Rose Bowl Stadium, the Galaxy hold a combined record of 87-32-9 record.
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