Marco Reus’ 2025 season has been slowed due to injury, but he has recently made significant strides toward returning to action.

Reus, who has been sidelined since March 9, has played in just four games this season, three in MLS.

“It was a long time ago since I was able to train,” the German midfielder said Wednesday. “It was a hard time the last four, five weeks, but I guess I made. I’ve trained the last two, three days. I feel good.”

“It (the knee) has bothered me since last year, I was struggling a little bit in the last weeks and months. I think the last one, two weeks, I made a big step forward and hopefully I’m back.”

The Galaxy (0-5-3, 3 points) departed for Texas after training Thursday, ahead of today’s game against Austin FC. Reus was among the group.

“He’s trained full this week and back-to-back, pretty high-intensity sessions, so as long as he’s responding the right way, then I would think he would be available for this weekend,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “It’s going to obviously be where is his fitness and how many minutes and all that kind of stuff that we will work through, but it seems like he’s physically in a good spot.

“The intention was to take a step back and try to really address where he was having the issues, where the inflammation was coming from and try to calm all of that down and now see if we can ramp back up and be in a much better place.”

The first week of March saw the Galaxy facing a three-game week. Reus played in all three. After the substitute appearance against Vancouver, he started against CS Herediano three games later and ended the stretch with an 83-minute outing against St. Louis City SC. That was the last game he’s played.

“Every player needs a preseason of four, five weeks, especially at my age, it’s not easy, but I felt great last year too,” the 35-year-old said. “It was not a problem. I was hoping at the beginning of the season I could train as hard as possible and be able to train every day and (play in) every game, but unfortunately my knee problem was coming back a little bit and for me, it made no sense to go through the pain all the time.

“The season is long. I know we’re not doing well at the moment, but like we say all the time and last year, we are one team, we just need the first win and hopefully it is coming on Saturday.”

Injuries and absences

Defender Mauricio Cuevas, who has been sidelined since preseason due to a hamstring injury, will be available. Fellow defender Maya Yoshida (hamstring) is starting to do work on the training field, but Vanney said he didn’t have a timeline for his return.

Mathias “Zanka” Jorgensen will sit out Saturday after receiving a red card in last week’s game against Houston. Eriq Zavaleta is the next center back up, but the Galaxy could also drop Edwin Cerrillo into that spot.