ROBBIE KEANE HAS been named as the new captain of the Los Angeles Galaxy.
The Dubliner, who joined the club in 2011 after the end of his second spell with Tottenham, takes over from Landon Donovan for the upcoming MLS season.
Manager Bruce Arena confirmed the news at the unveiling of the club’s new second strip.
“Robbie Keane will be our captain to start the season, and he will be our captain this season,” Arena told reporters.
“(Keane is) a fabulous choice as captain. He’s a quality player, he’s a quality leader, so Robbie’s prepared to lead this team.”
Donovan – expected back from a self-imposed break from the game late in March – had been captain since taking over from David Beckham at the end of the 2008 season, but the honour now falls to Keane.
The 32-year-old scored 22 goals in his first full season in the MLS, also contributing eight assists, and Ireland’s record goalscorer signed a long-term extension to his deal at the Home Depot Center in January.
The Galaxy begin their MLS campaign when they host the Chicago Fire on Sunday.
GAA don’t care about anything but the airgead
The CPA proposals are not realistic. The month of April for Club fixtures? 1. It’s right in the business end of the National leagues. 2. Clubs aren’t and shouldn’t be ready for championship at that time of year. The finals are not until October.
The club finals work well on St Patricks day. It gives them the publicity and spotlight that they deserve. The alternative as proposed is to play them in late November/December. That’s not acceptable imo.
@Tim Dawson: club leagues should be started in early/mid February and ran off every week (or pretty much every week) which would have most leagues ran off by the end of April. Semi finals and finals to be ran off and completed by May/June. Club championships can then be started in April, not sure why you think this is too early as every club will be training since January? Not sure why if you start a champing April you couldn’t have it completed early August at the latest, which would allow provincials and all ireland series played out before the end of October.
Have a rigid fixture list in place and lose this nonsense of having 3/4 week gaps between games.
@Robert Callaghan: hem! Because there is also the intercounty league and championship and clubs will not play without their county players. The national league is played in April. That’s why you can’t have club championship then. Or are we now talking about punishing the county player for being better and flogging them to death?
@Tim Dawson: grand, start it in May then, or move National Leagues to March and get rid of the O’Byrne/McKenna cup preseason comps to freely time. The General point being that we have less gaps between games and a rigid calendar. The whole thing from intercounty down needs to be restructured because it’s broken.
Are you happy then to leave the fixture system the way it is and ignore the overwhelming opinion of club players? For what, because the club championship final has to be played on St. Patrick’s Days because it always has?