Article by Matt Lichtenstadter
If there is a star in the world of soccer, MLS has been linked with signing them, whether the rumors are legitimate or not. Many have come and gone, some taking the experience more seriously than others, some come and going with little impact and others more than leaving their mark. Bringing these stars to the league has been a high stakes game of poker, with big wins and big busts.
Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez has been linked with MLS more than almost any other big name but bringing him over seemed like a bigger challenge than almost any other the league has faced in this arena. But it the early days of the league’s 25th anniversary season, it looks like the league and the LA Galaxy have finally found the white whale. His impact on the league and its outlook could be enormous. Can MLS take that and turn it into something even larger?
When MLS looked outward, it looked longingly towards Europe, because the league wanted to be taken seriously. Even if that meant bringing in big names well past their sell by date, the league wanted to earn some street cred in Europe’s biggest soccer circles, with the added bonusof curious glances from the casual American sports fan. Save for Freddy Adu, the league never found the formula to be taken seriously at home and abroad during this era.
Enter David Beckham, whose mere presence fundamentally altered MLS from top to bottom. That was genesis from which everything else in the league’s history has followed. Big names came and went, some with bigger impacts than others and the league continued to earn that long lusted after credibility in Europe. With Beckham and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, MLS was able to earn credibility in Europe while also attracting eyeballs at home too; a difficult balance to strike for a league that has found itself behind the eight ball with English and especially Spanish speaking audiences too often.
Chicharito’s arrival sees MLS look inward for the first time at a long neglected market in the United States: Mexicans. They’re the reason why Liga MX is the most popular soccer league in the country, not MLS, the Premier League or any other. They haven’t taken to MLS with Beckham, Zlatan, Henry, Drogba or any other numbers of European heavyweights. Their interests were piqued by their own: Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Rafa Márquez, etc. But when they left, the league and the teams they played for could not capitalize on the new found attention. Carlos Vela has brought some new eyeballs to the league, but Chicharito will bring even more.
While he is a star on the pitch, even though his recent returns at West Ham and Sevilla aren’t up to his standards, he’s a bigger star off it. Bringing the most popular Mexican player in recent history to a market like Los Angeles is a coup for the league. He might not score the goals recent DP’s have, but even if he doesn’t, it might not matter. MLS is being taken more seriously by the Mexican media and the average Mexican soccer fan more than ever before, and Chicharito’spresence will speed up that trend even further.
MLS cannot stop with just bringing Chicharito into the fold, they must do more to keep the new eyeballs on the league. It helps that the league is bringing in other Mexican players, and that the ties between MLS and Liga MX are growing stronger with Leagues Cup and the 2020 All Star game in LA, but they need to convert these Mexican fans into MLS fans. With other Mexican players in the league in the past, MLS failed to do this. There’s no better time than the present to keep them in the fold than now. Their point of entry doesn’t matter once they’re in the fold for good.
Chicharito will not bring the same crossover appeal as Beckham, Zlatan and others did with the casual sports fan, perhaps even the “Eurosnob”. Chicharito isn’t going to be a guest on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” or Jimmy Kimmel Live, for example. But the Zlatan experience, like Beckham, turned out to be somewhat temporary. Chicharito’s impact could have some major staying power with a key group of fans that MLS needs to have to thrive.
Some have said that Hernandez is the second most important signing in MLS history, and that is a compelling argument. His impact on the pitch will be big, off it, it will be bigger. MLS has never had much of a problem creating these moments of intrigue and interests. They have had trouble making them last and stick. Could bringing over Chicharito change that?
There’s no better time than the present to find out.
