With his goal in Saturday’s 2-1 win against D.C. United, Galaxy midfielder Diego Fagúndez moved closer to the 80-goal, 80-assist group.
It’s a rare accomplishment, with only three players in MLS history – Landon Donovan, Jaime Moreno and Diego Valeri – reaching the milestone.
Fagúndez, who now has 77 goals to go along with 76 assists in his 12-year career, tried to downplay the significance.
“To be honest, it doesn’t mean much,” he said Saturday. “It’s just another number that I get closer to. At the end of the day, I just want to be one of those players that will be recognized for what I’ve accomplished. Maybe it doesn’t show as much when your numbers are not showing every game, you know? But the work rate and everything that I give, that’s what matters to me and winning games.
“Winning games is what people remember, not the achievements that personally you have. It’s always nice to have those things, that’s why I have it in the back of my book, and I just keep those to myself. But like I said, if I can end the year with 80-80, I’ll be happy. If I don’t, there’s another year and I just have to keep working harder and get there, but right now we want to win games and make it as far as we can in this league and hopefully talk about playoffs sometime.”
Fagúndez and the Galaxy have won consecutive games heading into Wednesday’s meeting against Austin FC. Dating to May 31, the Galaxy have gained at least a point in five of their past six games (3-1-2).
“I think it’s one of those things that we want to forget about what happened before and focus on what’s happening now,” Fagúndez said. “I don’t think we were a bad team before, but I think if you look at the mistakes we were making, I think we were punishing ourselves and now we’re not making those mistakes. We’re actually allowing other teams to make those mistakes and we’re finishing our chances when we have to.
“We have to be mindful of mistakes that we make, but right now everything is clicking and everybody is putting in the shift. And when everybody puts in the shift and everybody gives their 110 percent, we can win games.”
Despite their recent run of success, the Galaxy are still at the bottom of the Western Conference with 15 points. The challenge now is taking points in the final three games of July, before the start of Leagues Cup.
“We have a quick turnaround and everybody needs to be ready and like we told everybody: if we play this good, we can beat any team,’” Fagúndez said.
After Wednesday, the Galaxy will visit LAFC on Saturday and Houston on July 25. Their group stage games in Leagues Cup, all at home, will be played July 31 against Tijuana), Aug. 3 versus Cruz Azul and Aug. 7 with Santos Laguna.
After the group stage, the Galaxy have three more games at home in the month of August.
By then, the Galaxy will have a clearer picture of their playoff hopes and Fagúndez could be even closer to MLS history.
“Do we believe we can make it? Of course,” he said. “If we didn’t believe it, we shouldn’t be here. We just have to take it game by game. We have a lot of home games coming up. That’s a huge part.
“We have an important game now again (Wednesday). If we get points out of that, who knows? You take care of business and get the points you deserve, then you never know. I think right now is the best time to get momentum and when we have all these home games you have to take advantage of it.”
AUSTIN FC at GALAXY
When: 7:40 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Dignity Health Sports Park
How to watch: Apple TV (MLS Season Pass)