Thursday, May 19, 2011

Thankfully, This One Got Away

Do you remember when Ronaldinho was elite? Wait a minute, let me rephrase that, some of you might not be old enough...

Do you remember when the Galaxy was linked so heavily to Ronaldinho? Yeah, that was much more recent. Ronaldinho was the supposed third Designated Player heading the Galaxy's way in 2010 to join Landon Donovan and David Beckham. With Ronaldinho's time at AC Milan all but over in spring 2010, rumors were flying left and right that the Galaxy was interested and willing to welcome Ronaldinho with open arms.

Even RSL owner Dave Checketts hinted at one point that a major Brazilian was heading to MLS, and when the Galaxy strangely dealt away Alan Gordon to clear room on the roster, everything but the red carpet was in place for Ronaldinho's arrival.

Except, it never happened.

And Galaxy fans should be thankful it didn't.

Ronaldinho has received poor reviews during his brief tenure to Flamengo, the club that eventually won his services. The Brazilian side was the one who wound up welcoming the former World Cup winner to their team and the hope was that Ronaldinho would light up the soccer field as he had done for Barcelona and Brazil for so long.

Things have not turned out that way. Ronaldinho's skills on the soccer field have not returned to their glory, or anywhere near it, and he's been living it up off the field as well.

Had Ronaldinho joined the Galaxy, he may have become the second coming of Denilson, widely considered one of if not the worst DP in MLS history. Ronaldinho no doubt would have commanded attention and drawn interest, something that Denilson couldn't quite do, but with the way his skills have deteriorated, the Galaxy would have seen pretty quickly that their investment would have been a bad one.

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