Well hello, Robbie Keane. Come on in. Apparently someone is willing to stuff your pockets full of cash on the chance you'll score a bunch of goals and they'll finally have a championship in LA to go with all that spending.
I'd call LA desperate, but since there's no chance AEG is running out of money anytime soon, I'm not sure the label applies. The Galaxy went all-in on 2011 before the season even started. Since Angel was a massive flop, signing Keane is just about the only way they could have increased the pot. It's not a little bit of money. And they had to pay a transfer fee as well.
If you know MLS, you know that's not something the league likes to do. The league likes freebies. Aging European star with thoughts of playing in America? Sure, we'll have you, but be sure your contract is up first. No need to pay a premium for a older model. It's not the MLS has NEVER payed a transfer fee, it's just that they've never paid a multi-million dollar transfer fee for a 31-year old striker.
We'll see if it is worth it from LA's end. A lot of Irish-Americans and American of Irish descent might buy a Keane-o shirts. That will help recoup some of the investment. But this obviously isn't about selling shirts.
I'll say it now - I think Keane will do fine, LA will win the Shield, and we'll all be tapping them as MLS Cup favorites when the playoffs roll around. Whether then win the crap shoot is something else.
And for all the teeth-gnashing about LA getting away with something outside of the rules (not that I've seen this in a lot of places, but it's out there)*, the league needed a bit of intrigue. Aside from Freddy Adu's return to MLS, there hasn't been much to go all atwitter over this summer (pun somewhat intended). Keane's signing came out of nowhere, hung in the air for a few days with no one quite sure if it would get done, and lands with a boom at just the right time for casual fans to start paying attention. Soccer people have heard of Robbie Keane. That still matters.
It also matters that LA charge forward with New York now a smoldering pile of twisted discarded aluminum. One spectacular big market failure is a story. Two big market failures is a disaster headed into November. With LA just about certain to be in the post-season now, it's just a matter of whether the Galaxy's cash splash routine bears fruit when it really counts.
Keane (according to reports) made sure to ask for what I'm calling the "best of both worlds" clause, giving him the freedom to go out on loan to England (or wherever, but probably England) during the MLS off-season so as to stay in form for Ireland (the Euros are coming, and there's qualifying to do). This is now clearly a thing - thank you Mr. Beckham - so be on the look out for more of it in the future. I doubt any MLS club will "like" dealing with such a request, but if the choice is between signing a big player and letting them spend winters playing on loan and not signing said player, there's not much of an option. At some point an MLS team will hold a firm line on this, but since the precedent is set, it won't be soon. It's either deal with it, or only sign marquee names who have retired from international play.
Leave it to Robbie Keane to live up to the jokes flying around the Twittersphere when his transfer rumors hit the internet. Having declared on many previous occasions that whatever club he was joining was the "club he supported as a boy" and was "where he always dreamed of playing", Keane couldn't quite pull that off with the Galaxy. So he didn't what I predicted he would (with a slight allowance for the particular identifier he chose to use) and said he has "dreamed of playing MLS."
Dream fulfilled! Imagine that.
See? He's already delivering what we expect of him.
*I wrote this sentence before word came down that MLS will make an amendment to the DP rule on Tuesday. So...yeah. Might not be related, but the timing is interesting.
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