Awesome. I'm glad I didn't watch all those JDS youtube videos for nothing! Time to ramp up my excitement from disinterested, disgusted, and in despair to cautiously optimistic.
How can we be in 9th with all those great players? Have you been following this season? All of the players you list above and a bunch of others, have been absent for many, many games due to injuries, suspensions and NT play.
Are Galaxy supporters paying attention to the nasty negative social media response by Mexican fans to this signing? It's the biggest story in the Mexican sports media right now and mostly the response is anger toward Dos Santos.
Let me guess- Jona is dead to them. MLS already killed Gio and now His brother is taking the cash and retiring too. Any good links? Frankly I'd been disappointed that there wasn't as much hate as when Gio was signed.
Yes, he's dead to them. His career is dead. He's a p**** pend***. They curse him and his family. He should be kicked off the national team to set an example. MLS is sh**. et cetera Take a look at the responses to the Galaxy twitter announcements, the Big Soccer MX forum, any YouTube video of the news that serves a Mexican audience (such as Univision). Example: IT’S OFFICIAL: The #LAGalaxy have signed @jona2santos: https://t.co/2dYNzJlROy #BienveniDosSantos pic.twitter.com/8jAROO2rbx— LA Galaxy (@LAGalaxy) July 27, 2017
I will be curious to see if the Galaxy gain more Mexican fans as a result of this transfer, or if the Mexican fans will be uniformly bitter and reject the Dos Santos's. The primary complaint of the Mexican fans seems to be the expectation that JDS's form will suffer in MLS because they already blame MLS for Gio Dos Santos's decline in form. But, that is a purely speculative and cynical outlook. We must wait and see what happens with their form in the long term.
Yes it will be interesting to see. You know I think JDS will lose some support with some of the "hard core" fans, but I also think there are a lot of Mexican-Americans who call Los Angeles home and are raising kids or were raised with both a sense of Mexican heritage and have an affinity for LA and the US. I think they will come. JDS is hopefully going to be good and be fun to watch - if we can play more of possession game we may see some great attacking soccer and maybe JDS will cause there to be a few more "It's bad but MLS isn't that terrible" comments than there would have been. But that's OK because LA is used to being called a pub team.
Thought on Jonathan Dos Santos: Can you imagine how things might have been different if LA had signed JDS instead of Steven Gerrard? Darn.
And a predominantly Liga MX Mexican team couldn't beat a Jamaica team made up predominantly of MLS/USL players twice, and were shut out by Jamaica from reaching the CONCACAF Gold Cup final (where Jamaica was beaten by a US team made up predominantly of MLS players). So if MLS is sh**, was does that make Liga MX? "Pride comes before the fall."
Sigi Schmid tells reporters that Jona dos Santos will likely be available to train ahead of the Portland game next week. #BienveniDosSantos— Adam Serrano (@AdamSerrano) July 28, 2017
You really think if it was MLS midseason we wouldn't see 4 Liga MX teams beat 4 MLS teams? Games might be a little more competitive but the overall difference in quality is readily apparent on the field. Most of the games looked a lot like US vs Germany in Brazil in terms of possession, chances created, ... Simple truth is MLS teams look out of their depth
My admittedly not perfect eyeball test is that MLS Starting XI vs Liga Starting XI when all other factors are removed is pretty close, with the advantage to Liga. But MLS Players 12 thru 30 vs Liga 12-30 isn't even close. Liga crushes MLS there.
Yep There are at least 2 times in recent memory when the Galaxy were outright robbed by the officials that sent them crashing out of CCL, pre-season form and all. I have zero doubt the 2010, 2011 & 2014 LA Galaxy in mid-August form would be the absolute equal of any Liga MX side. SuperLiga provided a small window in to that reality. Mid-season MLS teams made it to every final, Liga MX teams only made it to 3 of 4. Liga MX teams did win 3 of the 4 titles and every time against an MLS side, but 2 of those wins were PKs after the teams had drawn in regulation. A pretty awful pre-season, Montreal team beat Liga MX side on the way to losing the final. No doubt Liga MX sides are better than MLS sides, but the gap is not that great and their dominance of CCL is magnified by their beneficial scheduling.
I think the anger here is not at the MLS or it's level of play, it's his decision to not continue to develop his skills in Villareal. It actually baffles me how after years and years of fighting for a starting position in Spain, he finally earns it! But then he decides to join the MLS. As a Mexican soccer enthusiast, I believe most are just surprised he chose to play in the MLS after all that hard work he put in to get a staring position. If you've followed Jonathan's career you would understand why Mexican feel the way they do about this move, however, they are trying to bash the MLS for that move, similarly as they did when Giovanni joined the MLS, both at such a young age. Honestly if you saw Giovanni in the Confederations Cup, you's see that his level of play has regressed significantly. Now Mexican fans fear Jonathan will suffer the same fate prior to the World Cup. It's not the MLS they are mad at, it's his decision to regress to a far less competitive league.
I will say that we as Galaxy fans feel like Gio has underperformed here with us as well this season. Not sure that's an MLS thing or that Gio's play relies heavily on his mood and motivation. It could be that Onalfo sucked the joy out of him like he did to our fanbase, but with Sigi as coach now, he might go back to what we saw from him between May-August when he was at his best for us. I hope Mexican fans give the league a shot and don't judge it based on CCL or the level of play from years back. There's a lot about the league that's fun and it's growing every year.
I've asked my Mexican fan friends about this. Just a few data points, but they say, no one is upset about his move, and they are just looking forward to seeing him play locally. Anecdotes aren't worth that much, but sometimes the online complainers are louder than their numbers justify.
Good point. We've seen flashes of brilliance now and again. But he didn't come into this league as a dominant player and then start to tail off as his time in the league increased....
Gio was floundering at Villarreal and for El Tri before he came to the Galaxy. In 2015 he had 1 goal and 3 assists in 27 games for Villarreal and had been dropped from the national team roster. That was why I wasn't that excited about him being our new dp at the time. It's also noteworthy that the Galaxy haven't been as good since his arrival.