The arrival of Mexican superstar Javier Hernandez, known as ‘Chicharito’ into Major League Soccer has quite rightly been greeted with enthusiasm among all but the most partisan fans of rival clubs.
His arrival at Los Angeles Galaxy has inevitably prompted comparisons with two other great signings at the Carson, CA club.
Firstly, there is the memorable arrival of England’s David Beckham who raised the international profile, at least in the English speaking world, in a way no signing before or since comes close to.
More recently, the legendary Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic arrived in Southern California and once again illustrated the ambition of the club, whose run of MLS Cup finals has dried up in recent years.
They hosted three in quick succession in 2011, 2012 and 2014 winning all three and verging on that rarity in American sports, a dynasty. In the latter two wins, home advantage was gained by having a superior regular season record to their opponents. They were dominant. Even before the start if every season, those in the gambling industries such as sportsbook would regularly install them as favorites before a ball was kicked.
When Beckham signed however, much of the international media coverage centered around well … international press coverage. Screeds of column inches were written by journalists (mostly in England) about how fans across the world would now pay attention to MLS, To some extent they did. I covered all three of those Cup Finals at the Galaxy’s Stub Hub stadium and there was no shortage of journalists from the English speaking world.
They had notional interest in the result to be fair and the longevity of their passion for North American club soccer was to be fair, not expected to last much after Beckham’s departure.
That said, the estimable Robbie Keane carried the mantle and his commitment to the club and the league wiped away cynical accusations that overpaid foreign stars would join MLS at the twilight of their career, just to pad their bank balance before retirement.
However much of the good that Beckham and Keane did was destroyed by some less than successful stays in LA. On 7 January 2015, Galaxy announced the signing of Gerrard to an 18-monthDesignated Player contract, reportedly worth $9 million. He only played 34 games and made practically no impact.
His final game for Galaxy on 6 November 2016 was a MLS Cup Playoff penalty-shootout loss to Colorado Rapids. Although he took and scored Galaxy’s first penalty, the club were eliminated after an even bigger disappointment as a signing Giovanni dos Santos missed his.
Dos Santos lasted 77 games and his and Gerrard’s tenure coincided with a fall from grace as Cascadian sides, Sounders FC and Portland Timbers won the Western Conference, and thus an MLS Cup Final place, for five successive years from 2015-2019. As of now, that streak is unbroken.
Ibrahimovic strutted his stuff on the pitch but the Galaxy’s results never matched his off field bragadociousness and his departure was not only a relief to his colleagues, but paved the way for Chicharito’s arrival.
With five years’ absence from MLS Cup final however, Chicharito must do more than sell jerseys and increase viewing figures among the nations’s Mexican population for Galaxy matches. The Mexican-Americans are not gullible. His mere presence will not guarantee viewers in a landscape where top flight Liga Mx games are just as easily available to television viewers.
Neither is Chicharito the hottest property in the hearts and minds of younger Mexican fans. Raul Jimenez is having a wonderful season with Wolverhampton Wanderers in the English Premier League, and it could be argues that his tenure there has already been more successful than Chicharito’s was at West Ham.
However, if the goals go in and LA Galaxy start achieving the results of their golden era, cynics should not rule out the Mexican legend altering the trajectory of his new club’s short history.
