Well I hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving with your family and friends (at least my American readers).
The big event in world football this week has been England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008, after being given a lifeline by Israel just days before. You can find summaries and commentaries just about anywhere on the web, and the fallout keeps getting worse for the English national team.
Although they will never admit to saying so, the LA Galaxy front office (and by extension, the MLS front office) have to be relieved by this news, because Beckham will no longer be out for a maximum of six weeks during the summer. Perhaps it will inspire MLS to arrange their schedule like a proper league instead of the ridiculously skewed schedule last season.
I know that David Beckham has said that he is not thinking about retiring and will always make himself available to the national team as long as he is playing well. On one hand, such an attitude is admirable, but on the other it stands in the way of what England must do between now and the World Cup qualifiers, which is rebuild the side. If I were the new England coach (God forbid, but let's assume) I'd bring back Beckham for a friendly so that he can reach 100 caps since that's so important to him. Then I would thank him for his service to the national team and politely ask him to step aside in order to bring younger talent into the team.
Assuming that England qualify to South Africa in 2010, if David Beckham is still their first-choice right-sided midfielder, then English football is in a much worse state than I thought.