David Beckham is back, as tonight he rejoins the Los Angeles Galaxy and his best friend Landon Donovan to take on the New York Red Bulls. But you’re hardly alone if you haven’t noticed his impending arrival.
When Beckham first came to the United States in the summer of 2007, he had grand visions for what he wanted to do for soccer in America. He wore No. 23, which is associated with our greatest star, Michael Jordan, and Beckham clearly hoped to push soccer up into the highest levels of our sports culture.
But looking back, that first game, in which Beckham was only able to play the last 15 minutes or so against Chelsea because of an injury, was a sign of things to come. Because a hard look at Beckham’s time in American soccer can only be summed up in one way: as a waste of time and money.
In the time since Beckham arrived with his five-year, 250 million dollar contract, Major League Soccer has seen hardly any increase in interest from the general sports fan here in the U.S. I don’t think I could possibly find a person who, from memory, could list all of the teams in MLS. Instead, the league trudges along in a state that isn’t much different than it was before Beckham arrived.
That hasn’t been helped over the past year, as Beckham has spent much of it jetting back-and-forth across the Atlantic, first to play for the England national team, in which he’s found a place again under new coach Fabio Capello, and then for Italian giants AC Milan, whom he moved to in January on a loan deal.
Part of me feels bad for Beckham, who clearly came to the United States thinking his time playing for England had come to an end following the 2006 World Cup, and wanted a new challenge. But things changed, Capello became interested, and Beckham has performed better than anyone ever could have expected. He was so impressive with Milan that the Rossoneri tried to keep him permanently after his loan deal expired – much to the annoyance of everyone involved with MLS, who felt (and rightly so) that Beckham had fallen far short of everything he had promised to try and do here.
No one seems more annoyed by the Beckham Show than his teammate and the second-biggest star in MLS, Landon Donovan. As part of the work on his book, “The Beckham Experiment,” Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl got some very interesting quotes from the Galaxy’s captain.
“If someone’s paying you more than double anybody else in the league, the least we expect is that you show up to every game,” Donovan says in the book. “Show up and train hard. Show up and play hard.
“I can’t think of another guy where I’d say he wasn’t a good teammate. But with (Beckham), I’d say no, he wasn’t committed. My sense is that David’s clearly frustrated, that’s he’s unhappy, and, honestly, that he thinks (Major League Soccer) is a joke.”
Beckham shot back at Donovan for his comments, and the two have supposedly had a meeting and sorted things out in advance of tonight’s return. But that still doesn’t change the truth of Donovan’s words – and there is little doubt they are.
And really, the most amusing thing about when those comments happened to be released was that Donovan had just helped the U.S. National Team stunningly reach the Confederations Cup final against Brazil, a game that arguably had lifted American interest in soccer to its highest-ever level – the thing Beckham himself set out, and so far has failed, to do himself.
When he signed up for The Beckham Experiment, to steal Wahl’s phrase, the Englishman thought this would be a fitting way for a global icon to end his career – attempting to lift the soccer consciousness in America to a level it hadn’t reached before. Instead, he surprisingly found second life in Europe, and once he did was ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
Because of that, it makes tonight’s forced marriage between Beckham, Donovan, the Galaxy and MLS look like its doomed to failure. But even more than that, it seems likely that few will notice, or care, what happens to it.
David Beckham is back. To many, that will statement will produce one answer. So what?
