Breakout season guides RSL's Diego Luna to MLS Young Player of the Year honors

The 21-year-old attacker earned league honors after his season with a career-best 8 goals, 12 assists in 31 matches including 26 starts.

The season didn’t end in any way that he wanted it, but Diego Luna’s 2024 campaign was out of this world.

Moon Boy was recognized for it Thursday.

That’s when MLS announced Luna as the 2024 Young Player of the Year, earning the honor over a group of finalists that included Diego Gómez from Inter Miami and Cristian Olivera of LAFC.

Luna won 35.66% of votes across the three voting parties, including 52.4% of the media vote, 32.7% of the player vote, and 21.9% from fans, per the league.

He’s the first player to win the award in its current iteration, and the first overall since Corey Baird was named MLS Rookie of the Year in 2018. Luna joins a list of Young Player honorees that includes Atlanta United’s Thiago Almada, FC Dallas’ Jesus Ferreira and Ricardo Pepi and LAFC’s Diego Rossi.

In his third season with Real Salt Lake after arriving on a then-USL Championship record transfer fee of $250,000 from El Paso, Luna totaled eight goals and 12 assists, the second-most goal contributions on the year for the club. He’s the second player in MLS history to record at least 20 goal contributions in a single season, and the first since Diego Ross had 21 for LAFC in 2018.

Luna was the youngest player to earn MLS All-Star honors this past summer, becoming the youngest MLS play to face the LIGA MX All-Stars in Columbus, Ohio.

Yet despite all that, Luna — the ultimate competitor — was left unsatisfied after his club’s season came to an end with back-to-back shootout losses to Minnesota United FC in the best-of-three first-round series of the MLS Cup Playoffs.

“I feel like it was a decent season for me, and I feel like I expect a lot more out of myself,” said Luna, who called the season “decent” when asked to sum it up in one word during the club’s recent exit interviews.

“There were a lot of games where I could’ve put the ball in the net, and gotten some assists,” he added. “But I’m grateful for the way it ended for me and individually. There’s a lot more that I can do.”

Luna came to RSL with immense talent, a U.S. youth international on the cusp of breaking into the senior national team as a creative midfield presence capable of playing on the left.

But in three years in Salt Lake — really, 2 1/2 after arriving midway through the 2022 campaign and playing in 13 matches, starting three — he’s become so much more. Effective on the ball and in setting up his teammates, he’s also become a capable goal scorer.

When it comes to the next step of his career, Luna immediately referenced “consistency” as a hurdle to clear before he eventually takes the leap for European, or other overseas, pastures.

“Consistency is definitely the No. 1 thing, I feel like,” he said. “You can score goals at certain times, but keeping that up throughout the whole year … is something that makes you a top player in this league.”

RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni likes to use the term “goal dangerous” with Luna, and his most recent season proves that.

“He’s an amazing young man, and his story is incredible off the field,” Mastroeni said. “How he parlays that into becoming a great soccer player and those two coming together met this year.

“I think the sky’s the ceiling for Diego, whether he stays with us or pursues something abroad. I think he’s capable of achieving whatever he puts his mind to.”

Real Salt Lake has already received some offers — or perhaps better categorized as “interest” — from clubs abroad, which is part of why Salt Lake signed him to a long-term extension in March that will keep the 21-year-old standout under MLS contract through at least 2026, with club options for 2027 and 2028.

“He’s a very talented young player, and he’s got his career ambitions and his dreams,” RSL sporting director Kurt Schmid said. “When those things become real, as they did with Andres, then we’ll have those conversations.

“I think it’s important that we internally discuss and decide what we feel is best, but that we also share that conversation with the player, his agent and the family to make sure we are making the right decision for everybody.”

Here’s a complete list of MLS Young Player of the Year and its predecessor, the MLS Rookie of the Year, since the league’s inception in 1996: