So, Steven Gerrard replaces Landon Donovan with the LA Galaxy. Pretty much how it works out, yes? Landon goes off to do charity work (really, I think he will) … and Major League Soccer replaces him with Liverpool’s golden oldie midfielder, a guy who looks like the most boring soccer dad in your neighborhood. A guy you would expect to spend his Saturdays mowing the lawn, not running 90 minutes with kids.

What, Gerrard is only 34? I would have sworn he was 40. But he is boring. I’m sure of it.

And he will be joining the Galaxy in midseason, we assume, once he takes a bit of a break from the current Premier League season, which ends in May.

What can Galaxy fans expect from Stevie G?

A semi-creaky and worn down midfielder … who no doubt still has more than enough to make a difference in MLS.

The aging guys in the Premier League seem to have decided the MLS is OK, a nice way to finish out your career, making pretty good money, in a league where you don’t have to kill yourself every week, like you do in England.

David Beckham was the trailblazer here, with the Galaxy nearly a decade ago, a move the Brits found shocking. Even if Becks didn’t finish with the Galaxy (it was Paris Saint-Germain), his experience seemed to alert the “near-burnout” Brits that they could let themselves down easy with New York Red Bulls, or whomever.

Frank Lampard is headed for New York City FC, the expansion team partly owned by Manchester City — which is owned by Abu Dhabi’s own Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed.

Thierry Henry, a Frenchman always associated with Arsenal, went over to Red Bulls for a stretch, here at the end of his career, and American soccer fans should be at least a little flattered that the word going back to England is that it isn’t so bad to play a few years of kick-about in the states. Robbie Keane is Irish, but he played in the Permier League (including one season with Gerrard), till he got tired of it, or it got tired of him, and he’s been one of the best players in the MLS the past three seasons — and MVP of the most recent, at the age of 34.

We should note, here, that Gerrard already is 34. He may not be quite as frisky as Keane.

One upside for the famous Brits coming over to the MLS is that they can move around in the states without constantly being fawned over. Even Beckham, who generally is fawned over in the rest of the world. Even his popstar wife, Victoria, was just another bony Beverly Hills socialite who was never bothered in the produce section at Gelson’s. And most Americans could understand them, which might not be the case if they had gone someplace where the language is some weird moon-man talk, as David Letterman might have put it.

Gerrard is no Beckham. Not as a player, certainly not as a self-conscious “brand”. Gerrard is the superior player, far better rounded. As a person, though, he is more of a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy, and away from the soccer field he will disappear like a ghost into the SoCal populace, which probably will come as a relief. An English colleague says the word around Liverpool is that Gerrard is pretty much a hermit because every time he opens the door someone wants to kiss his hand.

(Liverpool fans are barking mad. Just warning you. If you are a normal person and have some criticism for Stevie, while watching him play Real Salt Lake, be careful about who overhears you; a “Never Walk Alone” zealot might punch you. Or worse.)

Gerrard is perhaps best known for two things. Well three, counting the “played for Liverpool since soccer balls were actually just inflated pigs’ bladders”.

1. To date, he has played only for Liverpool.

2. He helped them with a Champions League title, in 2005 … but he couldn’t help them end their futility streak when it comes to winning league titles, which they have not done since 1990. They might have won the Premier League last season, if his oft-reviewed slip hadn’t set up the first Chelsea goal in a crucial match.

What will be interesting is how Gerrard deals with the media. Premier League guys essentially do no interviews. They are never asked/required to meet reporters and speak with them.

The Galaxy historically has had open practices and player availability afterward. (Though Beckham availability was carefully apportioned.) We’re not entirely sure Stevie G can form sentences for more than a few minutes at a time. And whether he will attempt to do so more than, say, once a week, and even then to the team PR guys, who won’t ask hard questions … well, SoCal journos shouldn’t count on it.

He should be able to play, though. If he’s “just a bit too slow” for the Premier League, then he’s still plenty fast for MLS.

But he will not be the open and honest guy Landon was. His life will not be the same sort of open book. He will prefer to be an anonymous guy who plays hard for 90 minutes, sets up Keane for a goal and goes home.