[caption id="attachment_68194" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="David Beckham congratulates Robbie Keane on his debut goal for Los Angeles Galaxy in August. "]
Between 2002 and 2005, the Los Angeles Galaxy won America's MLS Cup twice. Between 2007 and 2011, they won it once. Yet, the English papers still tried to tell us this week that David Beckham single-handedly delivered a title to the California club last Sunday week. Reading the over-heated British media coverage, it seemed as if the Galaxy had labored in the wilderness until the one-footed wonder decided to cash in his chips and take the Hollywood dollar.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. If anything, one of America's most successful clubs seriously underachieved during the Beckham era. The true story of what just happened in Major League Soccer then has very little to do with the over-rated one, it's rather a very simple tale of money triumphing. As it most usually does. The Galaxy, the most expensive team ever assembled in these parts, eked out a 1-0 win over a Houston Dynamo side that didn't have a single player earning more than a million dollars a year.
Just to put that in further perspective, Beckham, Robbie Keane and Landon Donovan earned $6.5 million, $3.4 million and $2.3 million each this season. The winning goal they combined for against the Dynamo has now been dubbed the $12 million strike. So, Beckham lifted a trophy because the club he plays for outspent all others in the pursuit of glory, adding Keane to the mix late on just to give them a further edge over opponents. It's a story as old and as familiar as sport itself.
That it took the brand name five campaigns to win one league is an indictment of the unprofessional and cavalier attitude he had to the game in America. Never mind all the marketing speak about growing the sport, he was barely present for the first three years of his contract, missing more than half all scheduled games. Paris Saint-Germain are welcome to him.
Of course, it's not fashionable to bash the Galaxy too much now that it's the home of Keane. The Irish captain provided a wonderful assist for Donovan's winner and generally cut a lively figure. Those of us who feared his appetite for the post-Estonia second leg celebrations might subsequently affect his performance were certainly proved wrong. Either he really did just have orange juice in Dublin (as he told American television) or Keane is too good for this league and his decision to move here was premature and ill-conceived. The latter point is of real national interest now that the country needs him to be fit and ready for June.
Sometime in the next few days or weeks the newspaper chatter will begin in earnest about a loan move for Keane to the Premier League or to Celtic. The MLS 2012 season doesn't begin until late March and there are bound to be a few relegation-battlers and one struggling Scottish titan who might fancy getting him in for three months. Especially when they would only have to pay a portion of his wages during that time. The question is whether Keane needs to play in Britain this winter or whether his own and Ireland's cause would be better served by him taking a break and coming back fresh in the spring.
The benefits of choosing that option are obvious. Keane can enjoy the next couple of months before hooking up with the Galaxy for pre-season training again in the middle of January. Aside from, ahem, those long spells on the benches of the various stops he's made, this would give him a nice rest followed by a serious pre-season and then ten weeks of competitive games in MLS before the Euros. On paper, that looks like perfect preparation and he would, at least, be one member of the Irish squad unaffected by the English league's traditional pre-tournament worries/excuses about fatigue from the long, hard slog of a tough season.
There's only one concern about this particular approach. How serious a preparation for the European Championships is 10 weeks of MLS action, interspersed with a couple of increasingly more mediocre international friendlies? Well, those of us who watch the American fare regularly would argue it's the same as a player knocking around the bottom half of the English championship or the Scottish Premier before togging out against the likes of Germany, Spain and Italy. Hardly ideal but often the kind of situation that can't be helped in the modern game.
Indeed, Ireland's entire campaign was one in the eye for those of us bemoaning the fact none of the squad start for contending Premier League teams. For years now, it's almost traditional for the Irish team to feature a couple of players coming from low stations and performing heroically on the biggest stages. All of the above won't be of much consolation though to those who believe he's not going to be tested enough in MLS and would benefit from a couple of months at Wolves or Blackburn or even Aston Villa.
The problem with him wintering at one of those locations is he'd barely have a break at all before heading to Poland and the Ukraine. Factor in the ludicrous miles traveled by American soccer teams each week and suddenly, the prospect of a heavy-legged Keane dragging himself around the field comes into view.
There's also something a lot more ominous to consider. As any Irish fans who've tuned into the MLS this past couple of weeks out of curiosity about how Keane was faring may have noticed, this is one physical and often quite dirty league. Scarcely a season goes by here without a team losing one of its big stars to a dreadful tackle by a perceived hard man. The weeks when Keane is back in the Galaxy shirt next spring will be watched much more closely than usual. And given the nature of some of the challenges he will have to take, we suspect Marco Tardelli and Giovanni Trapattoni might be watching with their hands over their eyes.
