HexagonalBlog

"Shouldn't you be in Austria?"

Nice touch, Barra Bravas.

David Beckham on 60 Minutes

Last night the 60 Minutes segment on David Beckham aired, so I decided to watch network TV for a change.  The interview was conducted by CNN's Anderson Cooper, and it seemed to be an attempt to reintroduce David Beckham to a national audience without the presence of his pop star wife.  The only mention of Victoria was when Beckham showed off a new tattoo that featured a portrait of her.  The segment covered most of his career trajectory, from his beginnings with Manchester United to his years with the English national team to his move to MLS and the abortive start last season.   

There were two dominant questions in the interview -- 'Why did David Beckham decide to come to America?' and 'Haven't we been through this before with Pelé?'  Beckham gave a good answer about his passion for the game and his interest in raising the game's profile in the States to a new level, which may not be the best answer but still good enough.  Tim Leiweke of AEG handled the second question, but I don't think his answer was all that memorable.  I wish he had said something about the soccer landscape being so different now than in the 70s, thanks in part to Pelé's influence.  I also with he had said that David Beckham's success is not necessary to ensure the long-term success of Major League Soccer.  His success would be very nice to have, to be sure, but it would be nice to see soccer officials not be drawn into the 'One Man/One Event that will establish American soccer' mentality that the mainstream press is all to eager to portray.

In the end, it was a decent piece produced for a non-soccer audience, which is very different from that which reads this and other soccer blogs and publications.   Aside from the news of Beckham possibly becoming a part-owner in MLS, there wasn't anything in the piece that soccer fans didn't already know.  But it is a chance to see David Beckham without having to know that he's married to a Spice Girl.

UPDATE (3/25/08): I added the link from the CBS News website.

Beckham's future with England

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.

Observations on the Austria-England friendly

So while I'm waiting for Don Garber to give his speech I'm reading the commentary of the Austria-England friendly on the BBC website.  And I came across the following featured comment:

"How bad has England football side got when they have players from MLS in their first XI?" Novelo on 606

That's funny, because MLS hasn't announced their First XI yet.

You know, if the English are going to take their swipes at MLS, it would be nice if they got their facts straight.

I don't get it

I really don't get why some people are upset that David Beckham isn't playing.  It's not like Beckham can't play because he's off to Europe to play in a Eurocup qualifier.  I could understand why people wouldn't be happy in that case.  But Beckham is hurt.  Injuries are part of the game, and part of the risk of sporting events.  Yeah, it really stinks that he picked up that injury while playing for England and aggravated it while playing for Real Madrid, but that happens.  It also stinks that folks are paying prices way above average in the hopes of seeing him play, but that is the risk associated with attending a sporting event.  The Galaxy want Beckham to play.  The League want Beckham to play.  Beckham wants Beckham to play.  But he can't.

Frustrated I can understand.  Upset, even angry - no.

UPDATE: Alexi Lalas just said words to that effect in his interview during the MLS match tonight.

Beckham has landed

David Beckham's flight should have landed by now.  If it's the British Airways flight (according to this site it is), they should be taxiing to the international terminal as I'm writing this. 

So what's the situation at LAX?  Lots of media?  Any?

An idea of what's to come

To give you all an idea of what's coming as people become drawn to the player, the icon, that guy named David Beckham, I present a brief excerpt from Paul Gardner's The Simplest Game (p. 251) about the arrival of another icon 30 years ago:

The Cosmos were still playing at the rundown Randall's Island Stadium in New York (CBS had to paint the muddy patches green), but suddenly the austere press box at Cosmos games was jammed, full of people who could not pronounce Pelé's name, and whose conversation made it painfully clear that they knew nothing of soccer.  But well-heeled people who moved with a swagger not seen before in soccer press boxes, and who made a fuss if they didn't get a good seat.

Recreating the Galaxy

It wouldn't have been difficult to improve upon the LA Galaxy crest and colors, but whoever the club hired did a good job.  It's silly to expect a club formed 12 years ago to develop a shield akin to teams that have been around for over a century, but it's good to see MLS teams move away from the horrible color combinations and edgy pseudo-futuristic logos in favor of a more mature look.  The new crest is one befitting a club that likes to think of itself as "the premier club in American soccer" (snort, chuckle). 

07.13.07

That's when David Beckham will be officially introduced as a member of the Los Angeles Galaxy.  I also imagine that will also be the day the Galaxy unveil their rebranding that has been rumored.

You knew it was coming

After the derisive commentary on MLS by the likes of Terry Butcher, Alan Shearer, Gary Lineker, Henry Winter, among others, you just knew that Alexi Lalas would have something to say.  And he has.  I want to expand on this post tomorrow but it's late at night so for now, I'll just throw this Guardian interview out there and let you all talk amongst yourselves.

MORE:  Okay, I've read the interview and I also read Jen Chang's thoughts on his ESPN blog.  Chang felt that you could explain Lalas' comments as either (a) the rantings of someone delusional, or (b) a clever publicity ploy.  He felt it fell under (b), but why not both?  It's not the first time that Lalas has said something outrageous, and at first reading Lalas' comments seemed totally ridiculous.  But after rereading the Guardian interview I'm starting to come round to Chang's point of view.

If I were asked to come up with a marketing slogan for Major League Soccer, I would go with "MLS - It's harder than it looks."  No one is going to claim that MLS rivals the top leagues in the world, but it's not some semi-professional league either.  It is a more of a physical than technical league in the northern European sense, more than I would like in my opinion.  I'm not sure that the average player in MLS is as good as the average player in Europe, but I don't believe there is a large gap either.  (One reason why I feel that MLS' announced Youth Development Initiative will turn out to be more important than the David Beckham signing is its potential to improve the quality of the average MLS player.)  Players who were good to average in the top leagues in Europe and South America will be among the top players here, but they have to be committed and play hard every game - you know, be professional.  And several top players who grew up in MLS have gone on to do very well in European leagues, especially the English Premiership.  One valid knock against MLS is the lack of truly important games, and I think it is there that it might be possible for a top player to lose his edge.  Perhaps expansion and/or a reduction of the number of playoff teams will help, but the latter isn't going to happen and the former is several years off. 

So what will David Beckham find when he arrives to America?  He's not going to find a league whose quality is comparable with the Premiership, Serie A, or Primera Liga -- it might be closer to the upper-tier of the second divisions of those three countries.  But he will find a league that is highly competitive with a quality of play that is often underestimated.  And most importantly, he will find a league with a lot of growth potential.