Giovani Dos Santos is expected to join the LA Galaxy’s starting 11 around August.
By Ivan Yeo
Apparently, one big-name signing wasn’t enough for the Los Angeles Galaxy this season.
Just days after Steven Gerrard made his debut in a Galaxy shirt, LA pulled off another signing coup. The Galaxy made official what had been rumored for weeks and even years, as they added Mexican international Giovani Dos Santos, who will transfer from Spanish club Villarreal for a fee of 7 million, and will be paid a salary of around 6 million according to numerous reports. Dos Santos will report to the Galaxy upon the conclusion of Mexico’s CONCACAF Gold Cup run.
Dos Santos is expected to take up the Galaxy’s third designated player slot. LA actually already had filled its three designated spots with Gerrard, reigning league MVP Robbie Keane and defender Omar Gonzalez. MLS however created a mechanism just last week in the form of ‘Targeted Allocation Money,” which allows a team to buy down a current DP contract to get it to MLS max money levels. The Galaxy furthered its position earlier in the week when it sent an international spot to NYCFC in exchange for allocation money.
So now that Dos Santos’ signing is official, the question begs; where in the field will Dos Santos play. Dos Santos can play anywhere in the attack as a midfielder, a winger or even a forward, but the Galaxy might be best served using him as a wide midfielder. Just like Gerrard’s presence will give LA the ability to break down defenses from the central midfield, something it had not had since the Beckham years, Dos Santos’ pace and speed out wide could give LA the sort of threat that Landon Donovan provided for the Galaxy over the course of 10 seasons.
Are there risks to signing a player like Dos Santos? sure. Despite a successful career at the national team level, Dos Santos’ club career has been up and down for the most part, and he has carried a reputation as a person who enjoys the nightlife (his time at Tottenham Hotspur is well documented) and living in Los Angeles probably won’t do much to curtail those passions. However Dos Santos appears to be learning from his past experiences, as anyone would tend to do as they start to get older.
Also, Galaxy fans have learned to place their trust in Bruce Arena, who has rarely struck out in player acquisitions since becoming head coach and general manager midway through the 2008 season. Since then, Arena has brought in the likes of Keane, Juninho, Todd Dunivant, Mike Magee and drafted Omar Gonzalez and AJ DeLaGarza, all of whom were major players in the Galaxy’s drive to MLS Cup titles in 2011, 2012 and last season.
Sure Arena has missed on a few players. Juan Pablo Angel didn’t quite pan out in 2011, and trading Magee for Robbie Rogers in 2013 looked like a disaster when Magee was named league MVP that year. In this case however, Arena took lemons and made lemonade out of it, as he switched Rogers from his usual midfield spot to Left Back and all of a sudden, the Galaxy had found their replacement for the aging Dunivant at that position.
All eyes now turn to StubHub Center in August, as Galaxy fans, MLS fans and certainly Mexico fans will turn in to see how Dos Santos’ tenure with the Galaxy turns out. As is the case with Gerrard, it will take time for Dos Santos to get used to his new teammates (and the apparent injury he suffered in Mexico’s 4-4 draw with Trinidad & Tobago may not help matters). However, if everything works out for all parties (and chances are it probably will), the potential impact for the Galaxy and MLS on and off the field could be gigantic.
