So, farewell then David Beckham. You took a mean free kick, you always looked good on camera and, er, that’s about it. Becks hasn’t actually croaked but the tone of reaction amongst British sports journalists has been decidedly obituarial. By opting to move to the land of Walt Disney and play in a Mickey Mouse league, Beckham’s football career is effectively over.
The size of Beckham’s pay deal with LA Galaxy, which is said to be worth £128million over 5 years, has raised eyebrows this side of the pond, largely because the Brits are still unused to the idea of top sportsmen getting movie star salaries. Beckham somewhat unconvincingly protests that he’s going for a new challenge. ‘I didn’t want to go there at 34-years-old and for people to say he’s only going for the money,’ insisted the Real Madrid bench warmer. Personally, I’ve got no problem with Becks chasing a fistful of dollars but, let’s be honest, this isn’t about football. As former England striker Gary Lineker said, ‘It’s tantamount to semi-retirement’
Beckham’s new employers would have us believe that his mission is all about selling soccer to the Yanks. ‘Vend it like Beckham,’ as the LA Times put it. ‘We want him to help us to be the top team in MLS and maybe, one day, become the top team in the world,’ claimed LA Galaxy general manager Alexei Lalas. (I always had Lalas down as a stoner and now my suspicions have been confirmed.) Can Beckham succeed where Pelé, Beckenbauer and Best failed in the 1970s? I very much doubt it. Despite several attempts to market the game Stateside, American sports fans still regard ‘soccer’ as a soft, girlie game. Beckham might help sell sports shoes to soccer moms but the notion that he will lead a cultural revolution and convert the Yanks to football seems rather fanciful.
I responded with the following missive sent to the writer of the above:
For all the bitching about Becks that you hear these days coming from the UK one is tempted to believe that his over-inflated mega-stardom wasn't in any way the fault of the british.
Of course that would mean we would have to believe that the media creation that is Beckham is the fault of Japanese schoolkids and the US sporting culture.
Puh-leeeeese.
You can complain that Becks is over rated and not worth anything like $250 million dollar (well, no duh), but why take shots at the US in general? I can think of plenty of ways in which things are different from the 1970's. For starters, back then it had been 20+ years since the US had been in a World Cup final field, now they get in rountinely (more routinely than England in fact.) In the 1970's all the teams played in stadia built for baseball or American football, played on God awful astroturf and often didn't make a dime from things like concessions and parking. Today, team after team are building soccer specific parks and building decent financial foundations.
Plus I really don't get the snarking at the US game in general. Fine, I'll admit, it isn't to the quality of the top tier in England, Italy, France, Germany or Spain... but I don't see UK writers going out of their way to remind folks that comparatively speaking the Greek or Polish leagues are just shite.
I think I was actually pretty restrained. I didn't even ask the guy if he had ever been to an MLS game, or for any other proof that he knows the American game in the slightest. My suspicion is he knows jack squat about it. God knows, I know more about the English game than he does of the US.
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