Ricard "Riqui" Puig Martí (; born 13 August 1999) is a Spanish professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

club

LA Galaxy LA Galaxy, also known as the Los Angeles Galaxy, are an American professional soccer club based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Galaxy competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), as a member of the Western Conference. The club began pl ...

Club career

FC Barcelona

Born in

Matadepera Matadepera is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of the Vallès Occidental in Catalonia, Spain. Twin towns * Mariapfarr, Austria, since 1984 * Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...

, Puig joined

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Founded ...

La Masia La Masia de Can Planes, usually shortened to La Masia (; en, "The Farmhouse"), is a term used for FC Barcelona's youth academy. The academy includes more than 300 young players. It has been an instrumental factor in Barcelona's European success ...

in 2013, from UFB Jàbac Terrassa. After progressing through the youth setup, he made his senior debut with the reserves on 24 February 2018, coming on as a second-half substitute for Marcus McGuane in a 1–1 home draw against Gimnàstic Tarragona in the

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

championship. On 11 June 2018, Puig renewed his contract with ''Barça'' until 2021, and was promoted to the B-team in the

Segunda División B Segunda División B ( en, Second Division B) was the third tier of the Spanish football league system containing 102 teams divided into five groups, until it was replaced by the new structure in 2021. It was administered by the Royal Spanish Foot ...

. He made his first team debut on 5 December, replacing fellow youth graduate

Oriol Busquets Oriol Busquets Mas (born 20 January 1999) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for Primeira Liga club F.C. Arouca. Club career Barcelona Born in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Girona, Catalonia, Busquets joined FC ...

in the 55th minute of a 4–1 home routing of

Cultural Leonesa Cultural y Deportiva Leonesa (), better known as Cultural Leonesa or La Cultural, is a Spanish football team based in León, in the autonomous community of Castile and Leon. Founded on 5 August 1923, it currently plays in Primera División RF ...

, in the season's

Copa del Rey The Campeonato de España–Copa de Su Majestad el Rey, commonly known as Copa del Rey or simply La Copa and formerly known as Copa del Presidente de la República (1932–36) and Copa del Generalísimo (1939–76), is an annual knockout footbal ...

; he also assisted

Denis Suárez Denis Suárez Fernández (; born 6 January 1994) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for La Liga club Espanyol, on loan from Celta Vigo. Club career Early years Born in Salceda de Caselas, Pontevedra, Galicia, Suáre ...

, who scored Barcelona's fourth goal. Puig made his

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men's ...

debut on 13 April 2019, starting and playing 67 minutes in a 0–0 draw against

Huesca Huesca (; an, Uesca) is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and of the comarca of Hoya de Huesca. In 2009 it had a population of 52,059, almo ...

. He scored his first goal for Barça B on 14 September, the second in a 2–2 home draw against

AE Prat Associació Esportiva Prat is a Spanish football team based in El Prat de Llobregat, in the autonomous community of Catalonia. Founded in 1945 it plays in Segunda División RFEF – Group 3, holding home games at ''Estadi Sagnier'', with a 500-s ...

. On 6 October 2020, Puig was promoted to the first team, being handed the number 12 jersey which was previously worn by Rafinha. On 13 January 2021, Puig scored the winning penalty in the penalty shootout (Barcelona won 3–2) after being held at 1–1 at the end of extra time by

Real Sociedad Real Sociedad de Fútbol, S.A.D., more commonly referred to as Real Sociedad (; ''Royal Society''), La Real in Spanish, Erreala in Basque, is a Spanish professional sports club in the city of San Sebastián, Basque Country, founded on 7 Septem ...

in the Supercopa de España semi-final. On 24 January 2021, Puig scored his first goal for the first team in a 2–0 away win in La Liga against

Elche Elche ( ca-valencia, Elx) is a city and municipality of Spain, belonging to the province of Alicante, in the Valencian Community. According to 2014 data, Elche has a population of 228,647 inhabitants,Frenkie de Jong Frenkie de Jong (born 12 May 1997) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for La Liga club Barcelona and the Netherlands national team. A versatile midfielder, he is known for his vision, passing, dribbling, technique, alo ...

assist.

LA Galaxy

On 4 August 2022, Puig joined

club

on a free transfer and signed a 3.5-year contract with

Targeted Allocation Money Allocation money, in Major League Soccer, represents an amount of money that teams may use to sign players and/or allocate to their salaries to get under the salary cap. Reasons for obtaining MLS teams receive general allocation money for these r ...

. He made his debut on 19 August as a substitute against

Seattle Sounders FC Seattle Sounders Football Club is an American professional men's soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete as a member of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The club was established on November 13, 2007, and began ...

, contributing to a 3–3 draw. Puig scored his first MLS goal—a strike from outside the box in the 89th minute—in a 2–2 draw with

Toronto FC Toronto Football Club (commonly known as Toronto FC or TFC) is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matches at BMO ...

on 31 August. He was positioned as a playmaker and averaged more than 75 passes per 90 minutes with a high rate of completion as the Galaxy lost only once in their final ten regular season matches. The team qualified for the

2022 MLS Cup Playoffs The 2022 MLS Cup Playoffs (branded as the Audi 2022 MLS Cup Playoffs for sponsorship reasons) was the 27th edition of the MLS Cup Playoffs, the post-season championship of Major League Soccer (MLS), the top soccer league in the United States a ...

, where they were eliminated in the Western Conference Semifinals.

Style of play

A product of

, is known to be a player capable of directing the motion of the game through his great attacking prowess. He has drawn comparisons to

Andrés Iniesta Andrés Iniesta Luján (; born 11 May 1984) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder and is the captain of J1 League club Vissel Kobe. Considered one of the greatest midfielders of all time, Iniesta has spent most of his ...

in the past, however has struggled for playing time.

Personal life

Riqui Puig's father, Carlos, was also a footballer. A

left-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

, he spent his entire career representing

Terrassa Terrassa (, es, Tarrasa) is a city in the east central region of Catalonia, Spain, in the province of Barcelona, ''comarca'' of Vallès Occidental, of which it is the co-capital along with Sabadell. The name ''Terrassa'' derives from Latin ' ...

Career statistics

Honours

Barcelona Youth *

UEFA Youth League The UEFA Youth League is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 2013. In its current format, it is contested by the youth teams of the clubs competing in the UEFA Champions League ...

: 2017–18 Barcelona *

: 2018–19 *

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

References

External links

LA Galaxy official profile
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Puig, Riqui 1999 births Living people People from Vallès Occidental Footballers from Catalonia Spanish footballers Association football midfielders La Liga players Segunda División players Segunda División B players FC Barcelona Atlètic players FC Barcelona players Spain under-21 international footballers Catalonia men's international footballers LA Galaxy players Major League Soccer players Spanish expatriate footballers Spanish expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate soccer players in the United States Designated Players (MLS)