Jonathan dos Santos has completed his transfer to the LA Galaxy from La Liga side Villarreal, the MLS club announced Thursday.
The Mexican striker will join his brother Giovani in Los Angeles after the Galaxy and Villarreal agreed on a $5 million deal earlier this week. Personal terms were finalized between Dos Santos and the MLS side on Tuesday, which was first reported by Goal's Ives Galarcep.
Details of Dos Santos' contract are unknown, but one league source tells Goal Dos Santos will receive a yearly salary in the $2-3 million range. He will be the Galaxy's third designated player, joining Giovani dos Santos and French midfielder Romain Alessandrini.
The Galaxy came into the 2017 season expected to move away from their long-standing policy of spending big money, choosing to focus on developing academy products for the first team instead. But the looming arrival of LAFC, along with an infusion of money from the NFL's San Diego Chargers playing games at the Galaxy's StubHub Center, helped the club fund a war chest to add high-profile talent.
The Galaxy had been in the market for a big-money striker -- with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Andre-Pierre Gignac and Dario Benedetto all linked to the club -- but Dos Santos' acquisition will likely put the search on the backburner until 2018, when MLS is expected to provide another significant infusion of targeted allocation money along with an increase in the cap on TAM salaries, a cap that currently stands at $1 million.
The move reunites Dos Santos with his brother Giovani. The El Tri midfielders have played together at Barcelona's academy before being teammates at Villarreal. Giovani, who is a year older than Jona, moved to the Galaxy from La Liga in 2015.
Jona dos Santos' transfer could signal the end in LA for one of the Galaxy's other high-priced central midfielders in Joao Pedro and Jermaine Jones, who both joined the club this past winter. Unloading one of them could help pave the way for some forward help this season.