David Beckham missed last night's Galaxy game

There ya go - and you can't accuse "Dexter of being a troll.

 

Nice of you chime in when Lalas and Gullitt got the axe last week, or when Arena got hired this.

Beckham's a nothing? Five goals and eight assists would beg to differ, and the effect he's had on Edson Buddle and Landon Donovan this season has been huge. They've scored more goals (40) than anyone in MLS this season.

It's not his fault Lalas put a squad together that would get scored on by 11 dustbins, and as such has given up more goals than it has scored.

Blaming Beckham for being part of a flawed team is wrong, but it's the American way, I guess.

 

I'm curious, Poin... What the hell did you expect?

On a national level he has boosted the visibility of the MLS and given it a level of credibility as a league that it never had before. I'm not saying it's a high level, but it's certainly higher than it was before.

But the fact remains, he's one guy on a shit team. Did you expect he'd put 10 guys on his back and march to the league championship? It ain't happening.

And to expect him to be a major sports figure in Los Angeles... dream on. He's not even close to the best soccer player ever to call LA home, and those who came before him were non-entities as far as the city as a whole was concerned. The sports landscape of LA is the Lakers, Dodgers and USC football. Nothing else counts.

 

I was expecting something more than to see Beckham discussed only when attending the NBA Finals or The ESPN Who's Now award show.

Lalas said that Beckham would be bigger than Pele in the US. The MLS commissioner Garber said, "David Beckham is a global sports icon who will transcend the sport of soccer in America." How's that working out? UCLA's incoming basketball recruiting class generates more buzz.

I would say that the MLS' credibility was higher when MLS players were winning games for the US in the World Cup six years ago than when they signed some has-been Hollywood wannabee, but what do I know, I didn't keep track of the England friendly last week.

 

Well, for starters, Lalas is an imbecile.

And I would say, without a doubt, David Beckham is a global sports icon that transcends the sport of soccer. The downside is, that hasn't meant all that much for the sport of soccer in LA, but no one should be surprised by that.

 

FACT!

Provably and demonstrably!

 

When I said I gave soccer a chance and it failed, it wasn't that I watched a few games. I covered the L.A. Aztecs for a few years and everything that they tried and failed to accomplish is being repeated now.
I liked the players -- George Best, Bobby Sibbald, Bobby McAlinden, Ron Davies; the coach, Terry Fisher, was a great guy -- but I never liked the game for all the now-trite reasons. Faking injuries. They never stop running for 90 minutes (bullshit, they run in bursts then stop. A striker might run a 30-yard sprint, then once the ball is lost, he stops running and lets the midfielders or backs take over). The ridiculous offside rule. If you want to cherry pick, why should there be a rule against it?
I covered games at the Rose Bowl with 5,000 fans there. Then on July 4 they would draw 60,000. How many were fans of soccer ... or fans of fireworks?
I covered games at the Coliseum with few fans. I covered games at El Camino College where they would draw 8,000 or 9,000 to a 13,000-seat stadium. I covered games that ended up 8-0. I covered a game in which a team could have benefited by scoring into its own goal at the end. I covered a game at Birmingham High in the San Fernando Valley, the L.A. Wolves where playing for the championship of some league I can't even remember the name of. Bob Cousy was the commissioner. I got him in the press box during the game and asked him what the players were playing for? How much money to the winners, how much to the losers? He stammered and said, "Uh, I don't know." They were playing for nothing but a trophy and after the game one of the players tried to run off with it. He was caught and dragged down by his teammates who then started fighting over who was going to get the trophy.
The Aztecs bought in Dutch superheros Johan Cruyff and Rinus Michels. Pele was in the league briefly, so was Franz Beckenbauer. I went to Bestie's, George's bar in Hermosa Beach, and, yes, it was fun, but that's why all these guys came over, just to have fun.
This is a major league town and soccer is a minor league sport. Last year, when Beckham arrived with all the PR-generated fanfare geared toward pop culture and the "E" crowd, he played a game in England one day and they made a big deal of the fact he caught a flight and played the next day for the Galaxy. But he couldn't do that this time because, probably it was more fun to go to Beijing and watch his buddy Kobe play basketball and then stand atop a bus for 5 minutes at the closing ceremony. The Galaxy is paying him bazillions. He and other stars miss too many games, relegating MLS to minor league status.

 

Nice take, clone.

 

The argument can be made that those in charge of MLS, ahem Don Garber, is not very bright and they make mistakes...often. One of those mistakes would be scheduling a match on the day after an international date.

Between the two teams, LA and Chicago, you have national team talent. Chris Rolfe of Chicago was in the US mix for a while. Landon Donovan of LA is obviously in the mix. Then you have the “star” names of David Beckham, who was called in last year by England so why might he not be called in again? Blanco wasn’t involved and I understand that he might not have been recalled but his play has been fantastic. Edson Buddle of LA, with his hot streak, likely should have been called in. Justin Mapp of Chicago was called up for the US team that played in Copa Libertadores.

The fact that there are so many players that are in the hunt for various national teams should be a testament to the quality of the league. To that end, the league isn’t meaningless. When players are purchased for $10 million (Maurice Edu) just last week, you know that there are players that know how to play already spread throughout the league.

The main problem with Beckham is that people don’t really understand the type of player he is. He is a wing player that steps up and takes dead balls. He’s more like Eddie Lewis, the player LA just acquired and was also at the US game on last Thursday, than he is like Ronaldinho or Claudio Reyna. Beckham doesn’t control the game. He was never the player that a game would run through. A lot of people don’t fully understand this and thus expect to see something different when watching him. They expect to see a Pele type of performance. They are hoping for someone to break ankles like Messi or Ronaldo. The guy is English, they don’t play like that.

Beckham can’t help that Lalas (a team destroyer that lasted too long in the league) comprised a defense that was entirely devoid of a decent player. Lalas is a wheeler and dealer based on name recognition and fan interest instead of talent (see Jolley, Steve returning to MetroStars/Red Bull New York). Thus you end up with a former steroid cheat manning the back line when he’s way past his prime.

I’m sorry, Poindexter, that Lalas ruined the team that you enjoyed watching. However, I’m just glad he’s no longer ruining the team I enjoy watching.

The cap it off, MLS, and by extension the American brand, is lot closer to Scotland than it is to the England. It is dirtier, grittier and more chaotic. It is a raw version of England.

 

That's all very fair, SoCalDude . . . . but aside from the standard criticism of the offside rule (I can point out that hey, if basketball players want to run with the ball, why NOT?!?!?), your main complaints had to do with the leagues of yesteryear and how poorly run and handled they were. If I see dorks at a beer-league softball game, do I get to write off baseball? If I see dudes win a rec-league basketball game and then fight over the trophy, can I then say that basketball was given a chance, and found wanting?

Of course not. That's not "soccer," that's a group of idiots getting together and lacking a longterm plan for the health and stability of their leagues. The fact the L.A. Wolves were bushleague is not on soccer. The fact the entire NASL was a house of cards is not on the sport of soccer. It's on the climate in the country regarding soccer at the time (Dick Young oh-so-professionally screaming at the Pele press conference, for instance), and the fact that the people running the show had no clue.

And as someone who covered the game for so long, you must realize that "stars missing games" for international play happens everywhere in the world. That certainly doesn't make their leagues "minor." Is the NHL a "minor league" because they stop play for the Olympics, and is baseball "major" because it does not do the same?

The main issue MLS has is that its schedule means that its players will miss more games for internationals than every other league in a major country. Everyone else plays on the FIFA calandar of fall-spring, while stadium availability, major differences in temperature changes in different parts of the country as the year goes on, and other reasons, dictate that MLS play during the summer. I do think that oppressive heat in Dallas summer is just as bad as the cold in Boston, but this is what the league is right now.

When MLS began, they had a clear idea (that has been tweaked quite often) of what to do for longterm success. Sure, it's still a "minor" league in our scheme . . . but this soccer fan was shocked it survived to Year 10 in the first place, considering its early shortcomings. Its gurus are also very aware of the sport's previous failures in this country.

Do not make the mistake of assuming that just because leagues of the past were jokes, that MLS is the same. A decade ago, sure . . .Lothar Matthaus came here to party. Luis Hernandez too. Beckham and Blanco came here to play soccer, and both apparently have found MLS to be at a level suitable enough to re-secure spots on their national teams.

 

This happens in almost all sports for different reasons. You can see wide receivers diving all over the place claiming pass interference. You have the kicker that gets hit after the ball is gone going into epileptic shock over getting tapped on the foot. In hockey you have guys going down with the claim that they were injured. In basketball you had Vlade Divac! Seriously, to complain about something that occurs all over is, well, odd.

I’m not sure where you are going with this. Yes, they don’t run for all 90’. In what sport do they? In hockey, you have line changes; nobody is out there for 3-periods. In basketball you have unlimited subs; nobody plays a full quarter let alone a full game. In baseball, is anybody running when a pitcher is walking around the mound? In football, how many team time-outs and television time-outs are there?

I get that the idea bothers you, but there is more running going on in soccer than there is in just about any other sport.

Yeah, just see above.

There is an offside rule in hockey and football. The offside rule is in place as a means to assist the defense. I’m not really sure of why you are complaining about this. I assume you like football. I assume you don’t mind their offside rule. So why is it a problem with soccer?

So, what you are saying is, you don’t like the game of soccer because there are times that people that also don’t like soccer show up to a game because it is a spectacle and not because of the sport. You must hate the Super Bowl!

So, you don’t like the sport because some game you covered didn’t have a real purpose. I’m still not understanding.

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Aside from the fact that The Galaxy isn’t paying “bazillions,” David Beckham has played in 19 of the 21 games that the Galaxy has played. He missed two games. One of them was the most recent due to international duty.

I really do not understanding you all that much. You rant about the rules and then complain that the guy is missing too much when he really hasn’t.

The Galaxy is, obviously, not as notorious as the Dodgers. Then again, the Dodgers have been in LA for 50-years while the Galaxy has been in LA for 10. I don’t know why the Dodgers would have more of a following. It boggles my mind.

If you don’t like soccer, fine. It seems obvious that the game just isn’t for you. You don’t appreciate the intricacies. You don’t like the gamesmanship or thought involved to formulate a play on the go. The breaking down of a defense with the ball at your feet while having the awareness to know where your teammates is just not for you. That is fine. But don’t ever claim you “gave it a chance.”

The things that soccer fans like, you dislike. No biggie. Just don’t be a fraud about it.

 

The criticism of the offside rule always cracks me up. It's not that different from the line of scrimmage rule in American football.