Back in January, when David Beckham agreed to sign with the Los Angeles Galaxy, Major League Soccer immediately got what it wanted: a huge wave of publicity — “much more than we’d ever dreamed of,” according to Commissioner Don Garber.

Even better, the bulk of that attention was positive. Here we are, five months later, and the publicity deluge continues — even though Beckham is still the great absentee, the star who has yet to join his new club.

After falling out of favor with the Real Madrid coach Fabio Capello and England national team coach Steve McClaren — the main reasons why he decided to come to America — Beckham is now back with both teams.

His recent form, according to one English report, has been “sensational.” Well, he did help England beat Estonia 3–0 last week, if that’s what they mean.

He’s also been helping Real Madrid toward an unlikely Spanish championship win — they should clinch it in the final game this weekend.

Suddenly the 32-year-old Beckham — who had been written off as “finished” only five months ago by many European experts — is a hot property. Great news for the Galaxy and MLS; they’re getting a top player in peak form, so no more accusations about the league being an elephant’s graveyard, if you please.

That is, it would be great news if Beckham’s resurgence hadn’t triggered a major conflict. Two conflicts, in fact: Real Madrid now says it wants to hang on to him, and England says it will need to call on him later in the year to play in qualifying games for the 2008 European championship.

Capello, after admitting that “we made a mistake” earlier in the season by dropping Beckham from the team, now states that “Beckham would be a very important player for Madrid, there’s no doubt about that. If the club tells me he is staying, I would be very happy.”

Ramon Calderon, the president of Real Madrid, says there is a possibility of Beckham remaining with the club. On Sunday, Calderon declared, “The public wants Beckham to stay, and I want him to stay,” and then stated that there was a clause in Beckham’s contract with MLS that, if activated, would allow him to stay in Madrid.

Such a notion was quickly denied by Beckham’s agent, Simon Oliveira: “There is no intention of getting out of the Galaxy deal. … David is looking forward to going to the States.”

Neither did the previously undisclosed “escape clause” cut much ice with Galaxy president Alexi Lalas: “I don’t doubt that Real Madrid would love to have David Beckham next season, but the reality is that the ship has sailed. We’re looking forward to his arrival.”

Lalas even professed to seeing a silver lining in the possibility of Beckham missing important Galaxy games to play for England (there are four such games in September and October, all of them clashing with Galaxy games). “It’s an honor for the Galaxy that one of our players is performing so well for a team like England.” That surge of optimism was capped with a typical Lalas flourish as he announced that if Beckham continued to be wanted by England, “I’ll drive him to the airport myself.”

A much more pressing matter for Lalas is the current form of the Galaxy, which can be succinctly described as dreadful. The club is in next to last place in the Western conference, with only one win in eight games. And during those eight games, it has managed to score only eight goals.

Late last year, before the Beckham deal, Galaxy coach Frank Yallop was already at work, ostensibly strengthening a team that failed to make the playoffs last year. On December 1, he announced a major trade: the Galaxy acquired goalkeeper Joe Cannon from the Colorado Rapids in exchange for forward Hercules Gomez and defender Ugo Ihemelu.

A trade that can be justified only by adhering to the overblown coaching theory that the goalkeeper is the most important player on the team. In Kevin Hartman, the Galaxy already had a good goalkeeper — it had won the 2005 championship with him. Hartman has moved on and is now the starting keeper for the Kansas City Wizards, the second place team in the Eastern Conference.

What makes Cannon so much better than Hartman is not clear, but to get him, Yallop was willing to give up Gomez, one of the livelier young forwards in MLS. A telling footnote to the trade came two weeks ago, when Colorado beat the Galaxy 1–0. Both Ihemelu and Gomez played for Colorado, and it was Gomez who headed the winning goal past Cannon.

As an attacking force, the Galaxy this season has failed to spread terror among its opponents. Seeking a goalscorer, Yallop signed the 6-foot-3-inch Nate Jaqua in January. Jaqua has played in all eight Galaxy games this season. His stats: goals zero, assists zero. Meanwhile, up in Colorado, Hercules Gomez has four goals and one assist in 11 games.

There are problems for the Galaxy at the defensive end of the field, too. Bad luck for a start — fullback Chris Albright is out for the season with a torn hamstring. That leaves the Jamaican Tyrone Marshall as the Galaxy’s only experienced defender. That is a highrisk situation for the Galaxy because of the abrasively physical way in which Marshall performs his defensive duties. He was ejected from Saturday’s game after breaking the leg of FC Dallas’s Kenny Cooper with a clumsy challenge, and he now faces at least a two game suspension.

Adding to the headaches for Lalas and the Galaxy is the absence of Landon Donovan, the team’s top star (until Beckham’s arrival, that is), currently on duty with the U.S. national team in the Concacaf Gold Cup tournament. It seems likely that Donovan will also be required to play for the U.S. in the Copa America, which could prolong his absence into July.

Incredibly, it seems that Beckham — already credited with putting England back on track to qualify for the European championship and propelling Real Madrid toward its first title since 2003 — may need to perform yet another rescue act in 2007: that of saving the Galaxy from being locked out of the playoffs for the second year running.

pgardner@nysun.com