Galaxy reportedly in pursuit of Mexican star Giovani Dos Santos

Over the last six months Chivas USA has been noisily remaking its roster to make it look more like the Mexican national team than a Major League Soccer club.

Yet it’s the Galaxy that appears ready to swoop in and land one of Mexico’s biggest stars.

ESPN Deportes reported that the Galaxy has offered $8 million to 24-year-old winger Giovani Dos Santos, who played last season for Spain’s Mallorca, scoring six times in 29 appearances. Dos Santos has also played for Barcelona and Racing Santander in Spain, Tottenham Hotspur and Ipswich Town in England and Turkish club Galatasary.

In 2011 the Galaxy signed a record $55-million broadcast agreement with Time Warner Cable that included Spanish-language content on a second channel. In the wake of that deal, the Galaxy has made several as-yet-unsuccessful efforts to land a Latin American player, narrowly missing out on Brazilian star Ronaldinho and coming up far short of signing another Brazilian, Kaka.

Both those players are in their 30s and past their prime, while Dos Santos could be coming to the Galaxy with most of his career ahead of him.

Dos Santos was a member of the Mexican team that won the U-17 World Cup in 2005, played in the 2010 World Cup and helped Mexico win its first-ever Olympic gold medal in soccer last August. He’s also well known to U.S. soccer fans, in large part because of the remarkable goal he scored to close out Mexico’s 4-2 win in the 2011 Gold Cup final. That loss effectively ended Bob Bradley’s career as manager of the U.S. team.

The Galaxy has a designated player slot available, allowing it to go above the MLS salary cap to sign Dos Santos.

A club official declined to comment on the Dos Santos reports, saying it “is way too premature.”

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