And now for something (somewhat) completely different...
I know that sometimes this journal can get a little bit sport heavy, but I rarely talk about association football (or, for those not familiar with that name, soccer). But this is going to be an exception, because there's absolutely frickin' HUGE news in terms of round football in the US today. David Beckham, one of the most recognizable figures in the game internationally, is going to sign to play for Los Angeles when his contract with Real Madrid expires at the end of June. The contract is meant to be US$250 million over five years, which would be the richest contract in the history of North American professional sport, if not international sport as a whole. At least for strictly the playing of the sport. If you add in endorsements, I am sure that Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods have exceeded that figure.
Now, I'll leave the pronouncements of doom, the discussion of how this compares with the way NASL spent itself into oblivion in the late 1970s, and what this means for the future of MLS, to more astute round football pundits like incendiarymind and tehdawgfather. I have my thoughts, and most of those centre around it being a) a special case and b) keeping up the development of home-grown talent; things that MLS has been getting right that the NASL had not. Beckham isn't the first big international name to finish out their career in MLS. Carlos Valderrama was one of the early stars of the league (or, more correctly, his hair was), but it wasn't for US$50 million a season, either. But the ownership of the Galaxy also owns a couple of other sides, so it's not that they want to kill the league, and they may see this as a way to boost revenues around the league by getting more butts into seats. And that's good. Besides, they're the same people who built the Millenium O2 Dome in Greenwich, England, so they've got experience at throwing good money after bad on English trash. ;)
But what gets to me is the fact that American association football fans still get no respect in England. A specific example from a blighter calling himself "captainhighbury" over on the Beeb's 606 football boards goes like this: "U dont undersand. In USA 'Soccer' = Beckham. They ont know a maonkey's about Henry or Gerrard or Rooney or anyoneelse. The dont even care how Beckham plays. They just care about the name. Its pathatic but thats the way it is in USA." (I had to edit that slightly, since it seems the captain doesn't understand that full-stops are followed by spaces. Misspellings were preserved, however.)
It's obvious that this fellow has his head up his Arsenal, since the people who do care about, and follow, association football in the US do know names like Henry, Gerrard (who scored the brilliant goal for Liverpool in the Champions' Cup final in 2005) and most certainly Rooney. Heck, I'd say Rooney is getting to the point of familiarity that Beckham has here in the States. The people to whom "Beckham" = "Soccer" are not fans, and they may never be fans. But they may be swayed to come out to see Beckham play, and maybe seeing the Beautiful Game in person, when they came to see Becks, will make them fans. It's as important to get the attention of the non-fans and the very casual fans as anything else. That's how the sport grows. And with a name like Thierry Henry, you're just not going to capture those people. But I digress...
Many of us are familiar with Peter Crouch, Michael Owen, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Stelios Giannakopolous, Didier Drogba and a number of other international players. We know Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Brian McBride and DeMarcus Beasley. The US probably has more players on Premier League rosters now than they have ever had. One could make an argument that McBride is the top player for Fulham F. C., and certainly one of their key players if he's not their top. This isn't the soccer guppy nation that it once was. Surely it isn't as association football obsessed as England, or most of Europe for that matter, is. But that doesn't mean we're all dunces when it comes to the sport, either. This is a nation of 300 million people. We have a large Mexican immigrant community that follows soccer before just about any other sport. When you go to an MLS game, you can see the world; the guys sitting next to you may be from Germany, and three rows back you have a group of immigrants waving a Colombian flag. It's certainly not something that's going to capture the NASCAR crowd, and it will probably always be considered a "niche sport", even when the number of fans in the States will exceed the number in England, simply by sheer size of our nation. And this isn't just about soccer in the US. It's about soccer in Canada (you know, that large, mostly-Arctic, Commonwealth nation that we share a domestic league with?), too.
So, to all of the naysayers, the ones that thinks we're a bunch of morons when it comes to football, in the international sense, sod off. Just because Becks is coming here, rather than joining your North London side and fulfilling your masturbatory dreams of a Prem championship, is no reason to take it out on the Yanks and Johnny Canucks who do love the game.
EDIT: For the record, two Prem sides are owned by Yanks (Aston Villa, and the famed ManU, and the Russian owner of Chelsea employs a Yank as Chairman), and 12 of the 20 sides have either US or Canadian players on the roster. A couple have multiple North Americans, with Fulham F. C. topping out at 3. And of the 8 teams without North American players, three have American ties in the ownership or management. How's that for a football-ignorant nation?
Here's hoping that Beckham is the best thing to happen to association football in the US and Canada. We certainly do not wish him to be the worst. And something in between would still probably be pretty good. And here I'll close with the crest of my top English side; a side in League 1, which even most Englishers ignore. Take that, you John Bull captainhighbury!
Now, I'll leave the pronouncements of doom, the discussion of how this compares with the way NASL spent itself into oblivion in the late 1970s, and what this means for the future of MLS, to more astute round football pundits like incendiarymind and tehdawgfather. I have my thoughts, and most of those centre around it being a) a special case and b) keeping up the development of home-grown talent; things that MLS has been getting right that the NASL had not. Beckham isn't the first big international name to finish out their career in MLS. Carlos Valderrama was one of the early stars of the league (or, more correctly, his hair was), but it wasn't for US$50 million a season, either. But the ownership of the Galaxy also owns a couple of other sides, so it's not that they want to kill the league, and they may see this as a way to boost revenues around the league by getting more butts into seats. And that's good. Besides, they're the same people who built the Millenium O2 Dome in Greenwich, England, so they've got experience at throwing good money after bad on English trash. ;)
But what gets to me is the fact that American association football fans still get no respect in England. A specific example from a blighter calling himself "captainhighbury" over on the Beeb's 606 football boards goes like this: "U dont undersand. In USA 'Soccer' = Beckham. They ont know a maonkey's about Henry or Gerrard or Rooney or anyoneelse. The dont even care how Beckham plays. They just care about the name. Its pathatic but thats the way it is in USA." (I had to edit that slightly, since it seems the captain doesn't understand that full-stops are followed by spaces. Misspellings were preserved, however.)
It's obvious that this fellow has his head up his Arsenal, since the people who do care about, and follow, association football in the US do know names like Henry, Gerrard (who scored the brilliant goal for Liverpool in the Champions' Cup final in 2005) and most certainly Rooney. Heck, I'd say Rooney is getting to the point of familiarity that Beckham has here in the States. The people to whom "Beckham" = "Soccer" are not fans, and they may never be fans. But they may be swayed to come out to see Beckham play, and maybe seeing the Beautiful Game in person, when they came to see Becks, will make them fans. It's as important to get the attention of the non-fans and the very casual fans as anything else. That's how the sport grows. And with a name like Thierry Henry, you're just not going to capture those people. But I digress...
Many of us are familiar with Peter Crouch, Michael Owen, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Stelios Giannakopolous, Didier Drogba and a number of other international players. We know Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Brian McBride and DeMarcus Beasley. The US probably has more players on Premier League rosters now than they have ever had. One could make an argument that McBride is the top player for Fulham F. C., and certainly one of their key players if he's not their top. This isn't the soccer guppy nation that it once was. Surely it isn't as association football obsessed as England, or most of Europe for that matter, is. But that doesn't mean we're all dunces when it comes to the sport, either. This is a nation of 300 million people. We have a large Mexican immigrant community that follows soccer before just about any other sport. When you go to an MLS game, you can see the world; the guys sitting next to you may be from Germany, and three rows back you have a group of immigrants waving a Colombian flag. It's certainly not something that's going to capture the NASCAR crowd, and it will probably always be considered a "niche sport", even when the number of fans in the States will exceed the number in England, simply by sheer size of our nation. And this isn't just about soccer in the US. It's about soccer in Canada (you know, that large, mostly-Arctic, Commonwealth nation that we share a domestic league with?), too.
So, to all of the naysayers, the ones that thinks we're a bunch of morons when it comes to football, in the international sense, sod off. Just because Becks is coming here, rather than joining your North London side and fulfilling your masturbatory dreams of a Prem championship, is no reason to take it out on the Yanks and Johnny Canucks who do love the game.
EDIT: For the record, two Prem sides are owned by Yanks (Aston Villa, and the famed ManU, and the Russian owner of Chelsea employs a Yank as Chairman), and 12 of the 20 sides have either US or Canadian players on the roster. A couple have multiple North Americans, with Fulham F. C. topping out at 3. And of the 8 teams without North American players, three have American ties in the ownership or management. How's that for a football-ignorant nation?
Here's hoping that Beckham is the best thing to happen to association football in the US and Canada. We certainly do not wish him to be the worst. And something in between would still probably be pretty good. And here I'll close with the crest of my top English side; a side in League 1, which even most Englishers ignore. Take that, you John Bull captainhighbury!