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 carted off the field: The game isn’t over. His mind then jumped to the upcoming World Cup in Qatar and being a member of the Canadian national team. He didn’t need a doctor to realize that wasn’t going to happen.
“So that was my first five minutes,” Crepeau said.
Receiving care as play resumed and backup goalie John McCarthy conceded before Diego Palacios set up Gareth Bale for the famous equalizer, Crepeau was desperate for updates.
“I didn’t have my phone,” he recalled. “I had nothing on me. I had Pablo [Chung, assistant athletic trainer] and my wife in the ambulance. We knew it was going to PKs. We couldn’t find one stream. Nothing was working on both phones. So we kept refreshing the internet page and saying they missed, we scored. And then it was two. And then, after three, I had a call from my dad. I didn’t even refresh the last one when Ilie [Sanchez] scored. My dad called right away and said, ‘Max, we’re champion.’ And from that moment, it was just like party in the ambulance.”
Shortly thereafter, resting in an emergency room bed at the Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park Medical Center, the celebration unfolded on FaceTime. The video board at BMO Stadium picked up images of Crepeau sharing congratulations with his teammates over the phone.
Meanwhile, in the real world, doctors had to evaluate him.
“I was just like, ‘Don’t talk to me for one second. Give me five minutes,’” Crepeau said. “But I could not say that to the docs. They need to see.”
Adrenaline soon faded and pain increased.
The next day, recovering from a successful surgery, Crepeau digitally joined the festivities on Christmas Tree Lane, which “was cool,” he said, “but not the real deal.”
He noticed how much his sacrifice and the club’s ultimate success affected people in the community. And watching his teammates celebrate on buses that circled the grounds with close to 5,000 LAFC supporters “was a great moment. I was really happy.”
Months later, having had time to reflect, Crepeau called the inability to revel in LAFC’s accomplishment like everyone else “bittersweet.”
Said Crepeau: “Now we have to make another trophy, so I can enjoy it with the guys.”
While LAFC players quickly departed for the World Cup or went their own way for the offseason, Crepeau remained in the city for all but the two weeks he visited Quebec over the holidays.
“It’s funny because I never got recognized in public until the final,” Crepeau said. “Now people start to say, ‘Hey, what’s up?’”
As it happens, the best response he can offer is a positive update on his health following one last round of X-rays. The worst of it – wheelchairs, walking boots and crutches – is behind him. His right knee is fine. And the fracture near the ankle has progressed to the point that this month he participated in his first run since the injury.
“He’s in a really good way,” Nikolov confirmed. “He will be the old Max that we know when he’s back.”
Crepeau, a player in his prime with league and international experience, is adept at playing the ball out of the back with his feet and tending to crosses, which is why he was considered a perfect fit when LAFC acquired him last year.
As the season progresses and Crepeau rejoins McCarthy, the presumed No. 1 keeper coming into training camp, along with veteran Eldin Jakupovic, who signed as a free agent in January, “we will be ready waiting for Max,” Nikolov said. “And when Max is back then we have a good problem to have.”
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Crepeau’s focus moving forward is regaining muscle mass, reestablishing his fitness, and getting up to speed as soon and safely as possible to help with the competitions LAFC has this year – and down the road.
“I’ve just got to keep pushing within the green lights that I have at the moment,” he said in late January. “Personally I just want the process to be pain free. It’s more than one season. It’s my whole life and whole career. It’s a leg at the end of the day. It needs to be pain free and fully back fit.”