Guess what: The Great David Beckham is coming to the United States playing in for the Major League Soccer’s (MLS) club team of the Los Angeles Galaxy for an unprecedent five year contract that could be worth a total of $250 million dollars. Here comes the savior for soccer in the United States…YEAH RIGHT!
First of all, Davis Beckham is way past the prime of his career by being in his early 30s. Running around the pitch (soccer field) on a weekly basis for about ninety minutes at a high-octane pace is asking too much out of the human body especially playing soccer for most of your life. Don’t ask me…just look what happened back in soccer frenzy Europe.
Beckham having played for Real Madrid in the Spanish League, and also taking part in the European Champions League, had been benched by the head coach in favor of half the national soccer team from Brazil including Roberto Carlos, Emerson, and the “fatty” Ronaldo (referring to the majority of Brazilian citizens hoping Ronaldo would lose weight including the Prime Minister of Brazil). More importantly, the new head coach for the Britain’s national soccer team has dismissed the former English captain for pursuing the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. The British press has had a “field day” on the departure of Beckham with headlines such as “Good Riddance” in the front covers of major newspapers in England. Bringing one player from England will not save the fate of soccer in America as a mainstream, popular sport. Many American sports fans are so used to high-offensive scoring contests. As a result, a 1-1 tie or a 2-0 win in soccer may seem dull and boring to some Americans. If Brazil’s Pelé (a worldwide ambassador to the game of soccer) could not extend soccer’s popularity during the late 1970s playing for the New York Cosmos with soccer greats like Giorgio Chinaglia (Italy) and Franz Beckenbauer (Germany) , how can Becks with limited soccer ability bring soccer prominence back to the United States in 2007 and beyond.
The following three articles have three different prospectives of David Beckham coming to the United States and his impact of promoting the status of soccer in this country.
The mere fact that an American – billionaire Philip Anschutz – is willing to invest as much as $250 million in a soccer player, to play in the United States no less, is the biggest thing to happen to the sport in this country perhaps ever.
Not that David Beckham is bigger or better than Pele, who tried this back in the 1970s. And not that getting a single player, even one with global star power, is as important as staging the World Cup, which the U.S. did in 1994.
But after neither Pele nor the most popular sporting event in the world managed to make soccer even close to a major, mainstream sport, the fact that someone is still trying anyway is telling.
The odds that professional soccer ever goes big-time in the States remain long, but not as long as they were before Beckham, his world-renowned game, movie-star looks, pop star wife and international fan base decided to give the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer (and Anschutz's direct deposit) a chance.
A quarter-billion for a soccer player? In America?
If Beckham is going to be worth it, then he must deliver for the MLS on every imaginable level, and his soccer skill, slowly diminishing yet still formidable at age 31, may be the least of it.
Pro soccer is never going to be a major sport in this country unless it becomes fundamentally more entertaining. This will certainly drive the soccernistas (the elitist, overbearing fan) nuts, but the reason America hasn't taken to the so-called "beautiful game" is not a lack of sophistication, but a wealth of superior and noisier entertainment options.
Americans know enough about soccer to consider it the "boring game," and you can pretend otherwise all you want but it's not like this is new. The vast majority of Americans under the age of 45 have played soccer, mostly in the countless youth leagues across the country. Nearly everyone has seen it either live or on television.
It has just never taken. Pele played in the North American Soccer League in the 1970s, sold out the Meadowlands, captivated the New York media and the league still folded. The U.S. has hosted men's and women's World Cups. Our women have won it all. Our men finished eighth in 2002.
Yet the sport remains of a niche pursuit, something kids play and adults ignore. The soccernistas have been
waiting for youth players to translate into lifelong fans for decades, but it never will on a significant scale. Kids play ping pong, too, but despite it being one of the most popular sports in the world (China loves it), when was the last time you watched that on TV?
The soccernistas want to believe that a well-played game will win over America, but that's naive to the way sports and entertainment work. Athletic excellence is all well and good, but it pales in comparison to colorful characters, rich rivalries, wild feuds and other assorted mayhem.
Scoff if you wish, but that's how NASCAR and mixed martial arts have gotten big, that's why boxing and tennis have faded and that's how the NFL, NBA and MLB have remained on top. It isn't just the quality of the game (although that doesn't hurt); it is the intensity of the entertainment.
Consider the NHL, which today boasts superior skill and skating from its 1970s and '80s heyday and without question boasts its sport's best players in the world – something the MLS never will.
But the NHL has been brought to its knees by commissioner Gary Bettman's decisions to both overexpand and curb fighting, a combination that has diluted rivalries and cut down on white hat/black hat characters fans relate to.
Soccer can be a fine, if small, part of our grand sports landscape. But it won't get big until it attracts world class athletes and showmen. It is noteworthy that as Beckham arrives, America's most charismatic homegrown player, Clint Dempsey, is taking his Maradona-inspired game and flamboyant celebrations to the English Premier League.
The MLS has zero mainstream stars that inspire anyone outside of the suburban, orange-slice set. Landon Donovan and Freddy Adu are about as interesting as growing grass. In a sports and entertainment world awash with charismatic icons and daily soap operas, soccer doesn't stand a chance.
To make the average sports fan care, to make the MLS truly "major," requires dozens of flashy players, wild crowds, impassioned rivals, outrageous antics and over-the-top news coverage. This is America; subtle doesn't sell here.
Beckham is anything but subtle, so he gives the MLS a face, a tabloid headline, a famous spouse capable of mischief. That's why he is important and that's why he just may be worth the million-a-week gamble.
But even if he banana-curves free kicks all over the country, all he can really do is help shine a little light on a league that, whether it wants to admit it or not, needs to get more WWE if it wants a following like pro leagues in UEFA.
Because not even Becks and Posh can make soccer a beautiful enough game to thrive in this country.
One of the most sublime performers of the 2006 World Cup has been reviled, thrown into a British trash can, left there to fester, and finally shipped off to the United States with a hearty "good riddance."
Surely, this wasn't what soccer icon David Beckham had in mind.
As an attention-seeking, worldwide celebrity with an equally famous wife (Victoria, a.k.a. "Posh Spice" ), Beckham had long considered leaving Europe to finish his career in Major League Soccer -- preferably Los Angeles, where he conveniently landed on Thursday. What better place to continue his jet-setting lifestyle, with potential ventures into television or film? It's just that he couldn't have imagined being so rudely kicked out the door -- by his Real Madrid club, by the British national team, and especially by the London media.
Let's say this right up front: Beckham's arrival will make no difference in America's approach to soccer. Beckham is a mastermind, a facilitator, only occasionally given to scoring spectacular goals. His play for the L.A. Galaxy won't create many new fans, if any, in Southern California or anywhere else in the U.S.
Then again, that's rather a hopeless case, isn't it? The MLS could bring in Ronaldinho, Didier Drogba, Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and the entire roster of Italy's World Cup-winning team without changing the American perspective. We're too set in our ways, we prefer our own football, and we like sports that employ the use of hands. This doesn't mean either side is right or wrong; it's just the way it is, now and forever, no matter how many U.S. kids so joyously take to soccer. If Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and George Best couldn't make a long-lasting impact during their North American Soccer League days of the '70s, don't expect any shifts in the landscape now.
For those who really care about soccer, though, Beckham's presence will be at least a temporary boon for the Galaxy and every other team in the league. There will be extensive media coverage, increased attendance among hard-core fans and untold millions to be made in worldwide marketing (there are statues of Beckham in Japan and Thailand, where people worship him as a god).
Beckham was a centerpiece of the great Manchester United teams, winners of six Premier League titles and two FA Cups, before being sold to Real Madrid in 2003. He was known as the best crosser and dead-ball kicker in the world (some feel he still holds those distinctions), and his hooking, swerving free kicks became the stuff of legend and the title of a film ("Bend It Like Beckham"). To this day, Beckham can stand there, some 35 yards from the goal with a carefully-constructed wall of humanity in front of him, and somehow bend that ball into an upper corner of the net as a diving goalkeeper comes up inches short.
It was one of those kicks, against Greece in 2001, that propelled England into the following year's World Cup. That, along with Beckham's superb fitness and field command, propelled him into the galaxy of worldwide superstars.
Beckham's problem was that he brought a load of baggage with him -- the paparazzi, the tabloid headlines, the reputation -- to the point where blue-collar soccer types resented the hell out of him. Make no mistake, from the tabloids to the fans, this is a blue-collar sport. His decline began in Spain, to the point where he was bounced out of the Real Madrid starting lineup this year (hardly a disgrace, with such luminaries as Ronaldo, Emerson, Raul, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Roberto Carlos and Fabio Cannavaro on the roster).
Most surprising, though, was Beckham's recent exclusion from the British national team, for which he'd been a longtime mainstay. He may not possess the speed of his youth, but he was one of the more productive players for England in the recent World Cup, delivering the free kick that beat Ecuador and contributing to some of the team's better offensive moments. England lost in disgrace because of a poor striker alignment, missed penalty kicks and Wayne Rooney's petulance, not a sub-par performance from Beckham.
That hardly mattered, though, for both tabloids and respectable journalists in the British press. Bounced from the national team -- most likely because new manager Steve McClaren wanted to distance himself from the previous regime -- Beckham has been the target of ridicule for months, the latest barrage coming in Thursday's Guardian Unlimited upon hearing of his departure to America. One column described Beckham as "washed-up," "a mangy mutt," "a flea-bitten has-been" and "one of the most overrated players ever to kick a football."
At 31, with a decent chunk of his career ahead of him, Beckham made a smart move this week. Fans will find him charming, well-spoken and generous, to say nothing of a dashing presence on the field. This isn't about winning over a country -- a lost cause, if there ever was one. It's about adding a bit of class to a struggling enterprise.
Alex Rodriguez has some wallet envy today. David Beckham—a soccer player!—has been handed $250 million (including endorsements) by the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer. That's as much cash as A-Rod's contract calls for, but Becks has to labor only five years to Rodriguez's 10. Even better, Beckham will be doing it in the relative anonymity of MLS, which despite predictions to the contrary still has yet to earn more than minor mentions in the nation's sports pages. There will be no psychoanalysis in the pages of the country's foremost sports magazine for Beckham if he goes without scoring for an extended period.
Actually, that's quite a likely prospect. Beckham's role has never been that of a scorer, even though his skill at curling free kicks into the far reaches of the net earned him immortality on the movie marquee. Beckham's game is passing—he has the ability to put the ball on a sprinting teammate's foot from half a field away.
Now on the dark side of 30, Beckham's game, dependent as it is on vision and timing, has seen some slippage. Upon taking over the English National Team after the World Cup, Steve McClaren's first order of business was to strip Beckham of his place on the squad. And this season, Beckham has started for Real Madrid all of five times in 17 matches. In fairness, he was solid in his first two seasons for los Galácticos, but he hasn't fit into new manager Fabio Capello's plans.
Since the words 250 and million will be appended to Beckham's name in virtually every media mention, American fans will likely expect to see a player as dominant as the great Pelé. Forget putting up hat tricks—between his deteriorating skills and the mediocre talent he'll line up next to, merely getting onto the score sheet might prove a challenge. But even if Beckham does play well, his presence stateside will likely do more harm than good for American footy.
In the simplest terms, soccer in the United States will break through when the country has World Cup success. There was a thrust in the right direction after the quarterfinal appearance in 2002, but then a giant step back last summer in Germany. As I wrote at the time, a huge factor in our poor performance was the lack of players with experience in the harsh fires of European competition.
For this, Major League Soccer is largely to blame. The league is in a difficult situation—they need to develop players to ensure they have a product that's palatable to a buying public with plenty of entertainment options. At the same time, any player worth watching regularly will want and need to leave for Europe to improve his game, and hopefully, by extension, the national team. MLS, though, has been agnostic about improving the game at the macro level if it means its own product will suffer.
National team coach Bruce Arena fired a few broadsides at MLS after the Germany debacle, saying "we need [American players] playing in more intense games to help develop them mentally, as well as soccerwise." MLS bigwigs sniped back instead of taking Arena's words to heart. Commissioner Don Garber called Arena's comments "ridiculous." Deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis said there "was not a shred of evidence" to prove the league's weakness hurt national performance. But the U.S. team's weakness under international-style pressure was impossible to miss.
There is little incentive to improve within MLS—not much push from junior-level players on the team, no withering media criticism, few demanding fans. For Beckham, who is as criticized by football fans as he is beloved by gossip columnists, it will probably feel like Eden. But for Americans like Freddy Adu or Clint Dempsey, this kind of pressure-free zone is a drag on what might become superb careers. So, Dempsey is on his way to England, and Adu will almost certainly do likewise soon after he turns 18 this year.
Dempsey and Adu, as two of the best and most recognizable stars in MLS, will be missed by the league's marketers. Meanwhile, Beckham's superstar wattage will suck all of the hype that's available for U.S. soccer into his vacuum. That will hurt the league overall, preventing rising stars like Taylor Twellman and Brian Ching from getting deserving attention. The future of U.S. soccer will be playing in David Beckham's shadow, while at the same time not getting the immersion in football culture that they will need. Beckham's presence will be a boon for sellers of Galaxy shirts and for his wife's flagging entertainment career. But American soccer? Not a chance.