David Beckham? WTF?!
By: Dave Martinez | January 26th, 2009
I had the horrible misfortune of being sucked into a footie game that I did not anticipate watching. But, like any MLS fan boy, it is hard to change the channel when you are witnessing a rejuvenated David Beckham, donning the number 32 for the Rossineri, slicing up the opposition in one of the worlds highest skilled and physical leagues.
(by the way: one of the absolute BEST blogs on theoffside is the work Gianfranco does over at acmilan.theoffside.com . I highly recommend the visit guys and gals)
It was a well fought game, initially. Bologna played their hearts out until a red card in the 40th or so deflated their energy, and the rest of the game was a foregone conclusion. What made it so hard to watch was David Beckham. Having watched AC Milan the past two weeks, my blood started to boil.
There was David Beckham, streaking to the right. There was David Beckham, alert in the midfield, exhausting all his energy to make plays happen, and stopping the opposing attack. There was David Beckham, looking every bit the World Class Superstar that one associates with his great name. There was David Beckham, celebrating each goal and each assist with a passion that could fool the casual observer into thinking he won the World Cup.
My question? Is this the same guy manning the Galaxy midfield?!
Look, I know Alexei Lalas gave him a garbage squad to play around. And yes, with Landon Donovan placing nearly both feet firmly in Bayern Munich, there may be even less to entice Beckham to perform. It hasn’t been easy, but a true professional leaves his blood, sweat and tears on the pitch at all times. He is doing it in AC. Why not LA?
It just came as a disappointment to this observer to see the man we all herald as “The MLS Ambassador” taking Serie A far more seriously than he does the league he represents. He had the fire for the most part of year one; then, by the magic of poor management, that excitement dissipated faster than ice cubes in a volcano.
Now, word out of AC Milan is that he may extend his transfer through June. Quite the ambassador.
We are heading into year three of the Beckham contract. Year 1 was a moderate success, including better attendance numbers, higher season ticket sales, more merch sold and a national Thursday Night Featured program. Year 2 saw a bit of a decline in all the above categories. If this is how he plans on starting Year 3, you can pretty much wrap up this signing as a let down. If Year 4 is any worse, you may be teetering on failure.
Am I going overboard with my assumption that a million dollar man and ambassador to our league isn’t putting 100% of himself into this project? Or does he have every right to feel let down by the Galaxy’s management, and thus, may consider an elongated transfer without consideration to loyalty?
Comment away.
img credit: Times Online
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John,
The MLS Fan Boy remark is just the way I write (as many know). I don’t mind the slight. Its pretty funny actually.
My point is this: You take on a title as Ambassador, you dedicate your LIFE to a new endevour, and you don’t show the same effort that you do on a loan deal? Even if the team you work for is rubbish, you do have the option of leaving. Now if it leads to that, then god bless him – he has the ability to do so. But don’t come off telling people you are the “MLS Ambassador” and then not put in the entire effort – on and off the field – that such a title would dictate.
And keep in mind kiddo – I agree with you that Becks still has top flight ability, but neither you, me nor Becks mom and pops forced him to take on this deal. He could have easily signed with AC 3 years ago!
I am not pissing on Beckham mind you; it is a casual observation that doesn’t seem just.
“Give him 3-4 more years. Then he’ll be slow enough enough for you guys.”
HE IS ALREADY SLOW ENOUGH FOR OUR GUYS! THAT IS MY POINT! But in AC Milan, he is suddenly flying all over the place, like he was 23 again? Again, it doesnt seem right.
Ah. That is life. I comment one semi-bad thing about Becks, and the European snobbetry invades to remind us MLS stinks. lol.
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Amen, Dave! I almost wrote a nearly identical post yesterday, but figured it would just be seen as sour grapes.
I used to respect Beckham. A lot. I actually believed the line where he said he wanted to be an ambassador for MLS. Now I’m thinking he’s just a fame whore who needs the cameras and the attention to perform.
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Oh, and also? I called this when Beckham got his first re-callup to the England squad. Sad thing is, for the last year I was thinking this was just satire.
http://lagalaxy.theoffside.com/player-news/dear-galaxy-from-becks.html
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Thanks Laurie. I thought I would be viewed as a sour grapes guy too, but it isnt about that. You get paid to do a job, do it! Why is that such a hard concept in todays society?
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everyone, do yourself a favor, and read Lauries link. Hysterics galour.
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Wasn’t his goal saweet!? And did you see him getting back on defense? In the defensive third no less.
It just goes to show what playing with other skilled players can do for a man’s motivation.
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And I’m not sure about him not taking MLS seriously. I think it was his intention. I think A LOT happened that he wasn’t planning on. I don’t know.
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I recall a similar play for the Galaxy last year. He received the same quality pass to the same spot on the field, but instead of firing a shot, Becks floated one to the back post.
Too afraid to try to get one past an MLS goalie or just “passing the buck” to someone else?
I’m a Galaxy fan…and I’m less that enamored with Becks’ attitude.
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Well yes, Laurie and Dave, your remarks might be used to define the expression sour grapes. Or else why so angry?
If you are writing for a football blog I assume you have been watching/reading about the sport for some time. Was the second half of Beckham’s Galaxy season the first time you’ve seen a player — no matter how rich or famous — who couldn’t get their game or their motivation up for a club or for a season, no matter what their intentions were? Zidane in 2004? Henry in 2007? (The examples are almost as numerous as there are players, but those were for Laurie). Were those players not exquisite before and after?
I agree with Jen. A lot has happened in the States that Beckham wasn’t planning on. I know that most of his fans are still astounded by how his injury was handled when h arrived. That memory alone might make any player happy to find themselves in the hands of the “Milan Lab.”
Beckham left Spain at a time when no one expected him to play for his national team again, and when he had just gone through hell with European club politics. He probably would have gone to Milan instead of MLS if both of those factors had not been in play.
Yeah he chose Galaxy and seemed genuinely excited (at first) about the idea of moving on to something new for him in the game. How could anyone have foreseen how it would work out — MLS had never had a Beckham and he hadn’t played at this level since he was a kid and he’d never played in an environment that wasn’t football mad — no one who hasn’t played in the States could have.
Still, I was surprised as anyone to see the length of his slump this season and the fact that he simply looked depressed out there. He’s been able to pull it together in what seemed to be much more trying circumstances than those. Who knows what happened. It wasn’t working, Milan is. Galaxy should sell him, use the money to buy a bunch of young players they can build a competitive club with.
Laurie, I’ve been reading this blog for two years because I enjoyed yours so much when I found it. We’ve agreed and disagreed about various things football (and agreed about almost everything funny). But your first comment on this stumps me: a fame whore who can only perform for the cameras? because he gets excited by playing with Pato, Kaka, Pirlo, Maldini, Ronaldinho in front of the San Siro!!!!? Why was it ok to accept that Beckham’s presence would inspire an entire league and not that any single player — Beckham or otherwise — would be inspired in that company.
BTW does Donovan fall into the category of fame whore because he played his best for MLS once ESPN’s Beckham cam got pointed in his direction? He even maid that part of the reason he was playing better was that the bigger crowds the Galaxy were attracting made it feel like they were playing real games — it’s still on Sideline Views somewhere.
As I mentioned on the Galaxy page. I’m a player’s fan. I hope both Beckham and Donovan play wherever they’ll be able to show us their best and that they are terrific there. Just like I’m happy to see Peter Crouch do well at Portsmouth (as long as he doesn’t score against Liverpool). Any mixed feelings I had about Beckham not honoring his contract, if he does want to stay at Milan, are now officially evaporated. He has two years maybe left to play, if he made a mistake leaving a top league too soon, he should fix that and enjoy it while he still can.
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Diane, it’s the fact that he’s giving 100% for a team where he’s on loan but couldn’t be arsed to give the same amount for the team and fans that pay his salary. I’m sorry, but when you get paid approximately 100 times the average league salary and you knew exactly what the quality of the league was like before you signed the contract, you don’t get to slack off because you’re “depressed.”
If he doesn’t come back in March and give 1000% for the Galaxy, I will have lost every ounce of respect I ever had for the man.
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Diane -
Regarding Donovan – he isnt in the same category. He suffered through this league during the growing pains, was forced back to this league when he couldnt mentally handle being away from his girl, and when things got better, he got excited. Fact.
Becks is not only an MLS player, but a representative and ambassador. He is invested into this project and into the money the fans pay to watch him AT HIS BEST.
What becomes apparent is that he plays down to his opponents level instead of rising to the occassion and leading. Dont you remember little league football? That was rule #1 – play at your level, dont play at everyone elses.
And your point about past greats doing the same thing . . . well, if yours friends decide to jump out the window . . . . do you? get me?
Point: He should be better than that.
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i think this whole saga with beckham needs to end with a transfer to milan. the guy obviously loves playing in a league that has a tempo that suits his age. ancelotti wants him to stay and today becks hinted that he may worm his way to milan permanently. its a damn shame that he cant shut his trap and play, like donovan.
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Look, I shouldn’t have argued with you for being angry. I’m just not. I’ve been watching Beckham play since he was a kid, as a rule he usually gives more than he has in the tank not less. I have no idea what happened this season or why. The guy screwed up, he should have been better than that, and I wasn’t talking about the past greats doing the same thing. I was talking about the fact that shit happens. In this case the player involved has enough of a track record in terms of commitment and effort (for many who didn’t start following him when he arrived in the States) to get the benefit of the doubt regarding what was going on last season. But that’s just me. As a matter of fact I don’t hold it against Donovan that he only got better when the league got better and didn’t follow “rule #1″ by playing at his own level no matter what, or that he was a brat and let team and paying fans down in Germany because he was homesick. Because, again, I believe players are people.
Anyway, I’m struggling to keep up with my twelve games a weekend now that I am in GolTV heaven. I’m going to continue to enjoy everyone who plays well (except against my teams) every week, and then I’m going to happily go watch my local MLS team play live next summer; and I hope you all enjoy whatever you watch or play.
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Lauri – exactly!
It is all fun and games now, but wait until he picks up another of his little injuries. I dont think Milan will want to get saddled with that.
Come March we will see his true character.
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Referring to the title- Maybe MLS just sucks and we have been led to believe it was a high standard of football because the league is desperate for success? You cannot perform without a good team in football. Its not basketball. I hate to break it to people but this is the truth- the league is nowhere near the level it should, and the lying by the higher ups has set Football in America back years in my opinion. Thats what happens when you do not build an organization the right way.
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Laurie : “Diane, it’s the fact that he’s giving 100% for a team where he’s on loan but couldn’t be arsed to give the same amount for the team and fans that pay his salary.”
Now, I haven’t seen Beckham play this season except for the odd 2-minute Youtube or Newsflash deal. So I’m probably not a great judge as to if he’s giving “100%” or not for the Galaxy. But there are other concerns.
First of all, how physical the MLS is. At Man U, Real and AC Milan he wouldn’t be man-marked and hacked from all sides. Partly because the defence had other concerns (Cole/Yorke, Raul/Zidane, Pato/Kaka, etc.), but also partly because they were simply less clumsy (yes, I’m thinking about Serioux, Marsh and all the other lesser “late” tacles [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_9UQXvrCHw&eurl=http://video.google.fr/videosearch?q=beckham+high+tackle&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&clientiurl=http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/B_9UQXvrCHw/hqdefault.jpg&feature=player_embedded is seriously not an instant red card??]). That kind of fouls simply makes it almost impossible for him to play well (think of Messi’s treatement against Real Madrid, except it’s not done on purpose, and by every team in the league).
Secondly, what is LA’s training setup? Beckham became a brilliant player mainly on the back of repeated training, not because he had exceptional skill (Giggs is the one that had all the skill). Ferguson always praised how hard he trained, never missing training, often staying after training to do free-kicks or other exercises. Cappello praised how hard he worked in training to get back into the team after he ‘dropped’ him. But training needs to have direction. What exercises, with who… Training (or lack of it) has probably strongly influenced his level at Galaxy. Not to mention that training with defenders who are just as clumsy as the ones that hack him down all year long probably doesn’t do wonders.
Third, his team-mates. Yes, Beckham is the ambassador, etc. But he can’t “make” a team alone. Ok, so he had Donovan with him last season. And you can’t fault Galaxy for trying to find good players to play him with (Xavier, Ruiz, now Kovalenko and Kirovski). But even so, Beckham can’t play to his best. He makes useless movements (he roams from the center circle to the by-line and from goal to goal, both defending and attacking, in a kind of evolved playground football where even though he’s a winger he’ll run after the ball as soon as it’s less than half a pitch away) that prevent him from being in a good position to do what he does best (cross the ball, although if he gets little practice at it in training that might no longer be what he does best). Think of Makélélé running amok around the pitch because his team-mates are unable to stop a single player or pass. And when Becks does get the ball, what can he do anyway? He’s got an opponent man-marking him nice and roughly, something he’s not used to (you don’t man-mark Beckham, or Scholes/Yorke/Cole/Zidane/Raul/Robinho/Ramos… get a nice deal of space to play into), and the movement of his attacking line (allowing him to pass/cross the ball to them) isn’t anything like as good.I’d be surprised if Beckham doesn’t give 100%. I don’t think fatigue from flights is anything special (he plays what, 30 games a season, tops? He used to play 50+ for Man U), and he obviously hasn’t suffered a major and irreversible decline in playing level. So perhaps although he gives 100% in LA it simply looks like less because it’s less effective, he pulls off good moves/crosses/passes less often, and it looks like he doesn’t defend as much because his opponents aren’t held up by the defence long enough for him to get back or they attack from the other wing, judging it ’shakier’.
P.S. Injuries too. Don’t rest a slightly injured player? He’ll be fine if he doesn’t get another knock. Rush a player back from injury? He’ll be average for a few games. Make players play even if they are injured (albeit “lightly”)? He’ll be anonymous and probably turn his injury into a long-term concern. Do all three? How do you expect anyone to set their league alight?
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I guess that’s what happens when you play with World Cup Winners and European Champions…kinda raises one’s game slightly more than leagues where Darren Huckerby can be considered a revelation.
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I guess the old adage “You get paid to work” is dead in this society. Amazing. At the age of 28, I remember a time when people honored contracts and commitments, yet, it seems like that was light years ago. Ce la vie.
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Shazback, you do make some great and valid points. (The Serioux thing was ridiculous.) The thing is, he looked great the first half of the season, when all those factors were also in place.
Also, about the injuries. I don’t remember him being played injured much this season. First season was a different story, of course. The team made the huge mistake of asking him if he was fit, and of course he said yes because he knew people were depending on him. Screwup all ’round.
But we never would have had that problem if he hadn’t allowed Real Madrid to numb up his ankle at the end of the season so he could play there.
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Laurie, perhaps he declined in the second half of the season simply because of repeated minor injuries that the Galaxy staff didn’t see/notice because they dont MRI him as soon as he has a hard tackle (like lots of top European clubs do), or because his minor injuries were under-diagnosed (club physio is pressured by fans/manager/bosses to overlook niggling little pains that might make him sit out a match).
Another aspect is that if he’s often on the end of tackles that he feels are bad and that go unpunished (yes, he played in England where there are a certain number of bad tackles each year, but at least they’re almost all punished) it can undermine his confidence. You play to enjoy the game (at least a minimum, although money can compensate the rest), not to go out and get kicked in the shins for an hour and a half by a player who is just “not good enough” and who won’t even get a card for it.
Tactics could also have a part in his lack of desire/efficiency/work rate/etc. If LA’s gameplan has become “give Beckham the ball and let him do something”, then I understand how frustrating it can be for him. Yes, he’s a good player, but he’s only one player. He’s not used to being given the ball often (for most his career he would watch the ball go out of defence, through the center of midfield, perhaps touch it two or three times as it was passed around the midfield, and play a cross/pass if he got a chance, not be asked to carry the ball or direct the flow of the game for his team) and his inability to win when he’s constantly reminded (by the media, mainly) that he’s a “star” player can also be weighing on him.
But we’ll never know for sure. Perhaps he was just depressed because he wasn’t getting any cameos in Scientology videos.
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It’s a little suspicious, I’ll say that. My thought is–he came in knowing that he was being paid to raise the level of the team. Dunno. I know basketball’s different, but the things that a guy like Lebron James did with a pretty mediocre team were impressive, even if he had to do them almost single-handedly.
Also: I’m pretty sure that a person would get hacked just as much playing in England. See, for instance, the glory days of Vinnie Jones, etc.It’s natural for a person in the role they’ve put Beckham in to feel a little dispirited, etc., but I think the idea was that the millions of dollars were supposed to help with that.
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Hey! Now I’m depressed. Shazback got a “great and valid points” credit and I got merely disdain
(plus I think Dave yelled at me about not jumping out of the window if my friends do). There must have been at least one marginally acceptable point in there somewhere — I wrote for 12 inches for goodness sake. I’m underappreciated and NOT rich…oh well.So, my kids were studying the Spoiler’s he-likes-the-butt slaps-there-better theory of Beckham’s Milan happiness and weighed in on the topic. Their theory is that he clearly can’t play and ambassador at the same time, that Milan is fun because all he has to do is train and play and not make the game popular in Italy (or do any homework was what I expected to come next). Anyway I thought that deserved at least a “there could be something to it.”
87 MILLION GAMES TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m in footy heaven.
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NO DIANE I DIDNT YELL!! THIS IS ME YELLING IM SORRY!!!!
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Oh, Diane, sorry!!! I was actually coming back yesterday to comment on your comment, but then Shazback’s was there and I read it and got distracted. (I’m undiagnosed ADD. Totally.)
We’re coming at this from different viewpoints. You want what’s best for Beckham, which is understandable — he’s been one of your boys for a long time. I’m frustrated that the team has been destroyed for him and now he’s making noise about wanting to jump ship without having accomplished anything. My boys are the other Galaxy guys (and fans, too) who’ve suffered through all the mismanagement — most of it not directly Beckham’s doing, but still… It would be nice to get even a tiny bit of what everybody promised two years ago.
Neither of us is right or wrong, necessarily. We’re just viewing the same situation from different angles. No need to feel rejected!
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Hi Laurie, no worries, I was just fooling with you guys — it was about time too after all the seriousness that’s broken out around here — and it was strangely thrilling to see what Dave looks like when he yells for real.
Strangely enough, we might be coming at this from different viewpoints, but not completely disagreeing. I agree that the team was destroyed for Beckham, but not for him personally and certainly not in any way that any player might have requested. And I wouldn’t have kept stopping by the Galaxy site had I not adopted the entire team — we all agree that Becks wasn’t much to follow last year.
I truly wish the best for the team and fans (well not the VERY best, the MLS Beckham-effect resulted in my family becoming Red Bulls season ticket holders — we love live footy). I don’t think Beckham was a good idea for the Galaxy. Not many teams are ready for that kind of scrutiny or pressure but, as I’ve said before, it was a treat watching some of the younger players step up to it and to watch Chris Klein actually improve with age.
In the end I think the team would do much better with the money they would get for Beckham and saving his salary to build a real team. Even if that means doing it without Donovan as well. The league already has enough or more attention than it needs from around the world. People will enjoy consistently good football more than erratic football from an unbalanced team (whether unbalanced in terms of skill or sanity).
Come on. There’s games to watch en masse today. Have fun!
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United States
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