Barring setbacks, Maxime Crepeau can see himself playing for the Los Angeles Football Club again before the start of summer.
Timetables are risky propositions and the 28-year-old Crepeau is under no pressure to return before he is ready, but as the Major League Soccer season draws near, the Canadian goalkeeper is recuperating ahead of schedule from the badly broken right leg suffered in November near the conclusion of the 2022 MLS Cup final.
Deep into extra time, the Black & Gold’s starting goalkeeper sprinted out of the box and flung himself at Philadelphia Union forward Corey Burke. It was an instinctive, desperate attempt to keep the score level as the monumental contest at then-Banc of California Stadium closed in on deciding penalty kicks.
For the first-year LAFC goalie, who was acquired in a trade with Vancouver before the championship season, the circumstances made him an instant legend.
The week leading up to the MLS Cup mimicked many of the 33 games Crepeau played in during the year. But MLS Cup game day? That was something else entirely.
Spending time on the field prior to kickoff with his wife, daughter, parents and in-laws, Crepeau soaked up the atmosphere before heading to the locker room and focusing on doing what he could to lift the trophy.
As the intense contest unfolded between the two best teams in MLS, Crepeau’s vantage point gave him the impression that “the game was kind of a boxing match.”
In the 110th minute, after scrambling to address an errant back pass by center back Jesus Murillo, Crepeau went down for the count with a mangled leg following the first red card of his professional career for taking out the Philadelphia forward.
“I’m not expecting a goalie to do that, but he decided to do it and he did it for the team,” said LAFC assistant coach and head of goalkeeping Ola Nikolov, who also joined the club one year ago. “That shows you what kind of guy he is.”
Crepeau’s first thought after being stabilized and…
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