Marco Reus is ready to begin his time in LA: Recapping his introductory press conference
The German midfielder spoke to a room full of media members for the first time as an LA Galaxy player
“I'm here to help the team and to win championships. So, that's the reason why you play football. And, of course, that's the reason why I'm here,” said Marco Reus during his introductory press conference on Friday afternoon.
The 35-year-old German midfielder was formally announced on Thursday morning by the club after weeks of rumors linking the two together. Reus will remain a part of the LA Galaxy until the end of the 2026 MLS season. The club’s official press release listed Reus as a Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) player, which means the maximum salary he can earn with the club is $1,683,750 per MLS roster rules.
Reus recorded six goals and six assists in 26 matches during the 2023/2024 Bundesliga season with Borussia Dortmund. He also notched two goals and one assist in 13 Champions League appearances en route to Dortmund’s appearance in the final.
His 12 seasons with Dortmund made him a legend at the club – with players leaving so often and links to other clubs, Reus stayed with the Black and Yellow until his contract expired earlier this year.
“I want to continue to play football, but my decision was to not play in Europe or in the Bundesliga,” Reus told reporters.
He made it clear that he didn’t want to be put in the position to play against Dortmund and it was why playing in another region of the world was on the cards for the next phase of his career.
The LA Galaxy attack now gets one of the best German playmakers of the last decade on its roster as the club prepares for the final eight games of the regular season and MLS Cup playoffs. LA is tied for the third most goals scored this season (50) while sitting at the top of the Western Conference. Reus mentioned he watched a lot of LA Galaxy games during his holiday and was able to see the damage the team can do in the attack.
“We have really, really good players, young players and I think for the future, for the next weeks, we have a good team,” said Reus.
With LA’s ambitions to win MLS Cup, Reus reiterated that during his introductory press conference.
“The goal is for this club to win the championship and to be successful,” said Reus. "It's been 10 years since we won the championship, the time is now and I'm ready, I think the team is ready, so we're ready.,” said Reus.
With other Western Conference clubs such as LAFC and Real Salt Lake making moves to upgrade their rosters, the addition of Reus ensures the Galaxy doesn’t lag behind.
LA Galaxy General Manager Will Kuntz was in Cologne, Germany at a rooftop bar when Reus’ camp first made contact about if the Galaxy was interested in bringing Reus. The timing was perfect as Reus’ agents have a base in Cologne where both parties soon met to talk about a potential move.
Charlotte FC having his discovery rights, LA had to pay 400K in GAM ($100,000 in 2024 GAM; $300,000 in 2025 GAM) to be able to bring Reus to Southern California.
In a media scrum following the presser, Kuntz went into more detail about the difficulties in negotiations with Charlotte FC over Reus’ discovery rights.
“(Charlotte) adopted a position that if you don't meet our price, then Marco doesn't come into the league,” said Kuntz.
“It is frustrating when somebody who has the ability to do it or not is kind of gatekeeping. So that was difficult, and that took a good bit of time.”
Kuntz spent three years at Major League Soccer’s league office, serving as the Director of Player Relations, interfacing with the league’s clubs in franchise salary budget management, the development of strategic league initiatives and the negotiation of the 2015 MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement. He’s well versed in the unique mechanisms of MLS and it was a huge aid in being able to add Reus to a team that already had all three Designated Player spots filled.
“It's invaluable in sort of understanding how to structure a contract, explaining to a player why you need to structure a contract like this,” Kuntz told reporters. “I think it would be really, really difficult to try and do this without having that baseline understanding”.
With Reus tied to the club until 2026, the Galaxy has his salary locked in for the next few years. Because MLS is a salary-cap league, the Galaxy front office will have to find ways to add players to the roster with less room following the Reus signing.
“Poor Mikkel Dencher, our new technical director, is trying to wrap his head around what the budget will look like,” said Kuntz. “Next year, it's going to be a healthy number, but at the same time, we have a very deep squad. There is a lot of time to plan how we might accommodate and make the room. So, not the easiest task, but a champagne problem.”
Speaking of champagne problems, Greg Vanney is going to have a hard time choosing who will start for the Galaxy down the stretch of the MLS season.
“[Reus] obviously has a ton of quality, but it's his work rate, it's his intelligence on the field, his quality and certain phases of the game,” said Vanney about Reus to reporters. “He'll bring us quality in more final products, more final passes. You can never have enough I think”.
Vanney also mentioned that Reus showed off his elite ability to take set pieces during Friday’s training. He told reporters that Reus hit five of his six free-kick attempts in the upper corner – it’s a good sight to hear for LA Galaxy fans as the club doesn’t have a consistent set-piece scorer.
Reus joins an attack of Joseph Paintsil, Gabriel Pec, Dejan Joveljić, Riqui Puig and Diego Fagundez. Players will have their roles and minutes on the pitch change but Vanney made it clear that he won’t “tinker” much with the squad as the playoffs approach.
“We have a vision of how I think the pieces can fit together based on what I know of our group and what I've seen of him. And so we'll build off of those things,” said Vanney.
“I'm not like one guy plays one position, it's pretty fluid and they'll interchange on the field. And so it's more about, what spaces do you want a player to occupy? Where do you want to find him? What kind of damage can the player do there? How do we want to defend? What's our structure?” explained Vanney.
When asked if he sees Reus as a player in the starting lineup, Vanney said “That’s my expectation” but made sure to mention it can change given the opposition and game scenario.
Adding a player of this caliber will undoubtedly raise the ceiling of the LA Galaxy heading into the playoffs.
After this long transfer saga, it’s all about making sure he can be the impact player for the Galaxy in high-pressure moments to have a good chance at MLS Cup in 2024.
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