LA Galaxy winger Gabriel Pec was voted the 2024 Newcomer of the Year, MLS announced Monday. The Brazilian led all first-year players with 30 goal contributions (16 goals, 14 assists), trailing only four MLS players of any tenure, and was voted to the MLS All-Star team this summer.
The 23-year-old beat Inter Miami striker Luis Suárez and FC Cincinnati winger Luca Orellano, among others, for the year-end award, with the Galaxy forward winning the equally weighted votes among the media (49.6 percent), players (34 percent) and club personnel (29 percent). Pec is the fourth Galaxy player to register 30 goal contributions, joining Cobi Jones (1998), Robbie Keane (2014) and Zlatan Ibrahimović (2018 and 2019). He and Ibrahimović are the only Galaxy players to earn the honor since its creation in 2007.
Pec debuted with his boyhood club, Vasco da Gama, in 2019, logging 168 appearances for the Brazilian club and scoring 25 goals. It was enough to land him on the Galaxy’s radar, with LA signing Pec to a five-year contract as a young designated player on Jan. 30.
He immediately earned a starting spot in Greg Vanney’s team, as he and fellow new signing Joseph Paintsil supplemented returning attacking midfielder Riqui Puig and striker Dejan Joveljić to create a high-octane attack. The Galaxy led the Western Conference with 69 goals in the regular season, only trailing Inter Miami (75) and the Columbus Crew (72) in the league-wide rankings.
The dribbly right winger was dynamic throughout the 2024 season, becoming a regular in Vanney’s lineup by late March and appearing in all but one of the Galaxy’s games. The consistent runout helped him be the team’s volume shooter, tying LAFC’s Denis Bouanga for the league’s lead with his 59 shots on goal (47.6 percent of his total attempts). He came up big for LA as it challenged for the conference title, logging three game-winning goals and six game-winning assists as the Galaxy finished second in the West.
Voting for this and all year-end awards was conducted in the first half of October, concluding on Oct. 21, the Monday after Decision Day. Pec continued to prove his importance in the Galaxy’s dominant first-round triumph over the Colorado Rapids, scoring and adding three assists as part of the Galaxy’s 9-1 aggregate series win across two games.
He and his teammates will now have to wait more than three weeks for their next involvement in MLS’s expanded postseason, with the conference semifinals commencing on Nov. 23 and 24.
(Photo: Ron Chenoy / Imagn Images)
