srs post
Back in the Bright Lights: Part I / Part II
This Is American Soccer has an awesome interview with Grant Wahl all about the book, how he wrote it (some people were all like "well how can he know all these detailed conversations?!?!"), the Galaxy, and sports journalism.
- "The original plan for the book was just for me to follow that first season-first half season really. And do it in real detail and write an 80,000-word book about that."
- "I have to give a lot of credit for people who had agreed to speak to me one-on-one in 2007 at the start of things when everyone was so optimistic, and then when things started falling apart on the field, at least in 2008, a lot of those guys could have just told me to buzz off, and they kept sitting down with me and talking-guys like Landon Donovan and Alexi Lalas, Chris Klein, Alan Gordon."
- "But when I brought the idea of the book to Beckham’s people, even though we had always had a very good relationship, their stance was that David had done books before that were “by David Beckham, ghost written by somebody else” and that he got significant advances for those books-over a million dollars. The implication being, if I wanted to have special one-on-one access to David Beckham for this book itself, that was the sort of money that had to be paid."
- "Alan Gordon to me is very symbolic of the MLS player. So many players in MLS, most of them American, make almost no money-Gordon made $30,000 for four years and only later got a bigger contract, which was still not guaranteed."
- "Yeah, I think the 2008 season was really hard for Pete. He was the longest reigning Galaxy player at that point and had been the captain of the team when they won the title in 2005, and he really bled for the Galaxy. He just had a rough time with Ruud Gullit. I remember Pete saying he would remember 2008 because of the birth of his first child and how great an experience that was, but other than that, 2008 was pretty tough. Pete was working a real difficult locker room situation where everyone knew he was really close friends with Alexi Lalas, and because there was built in tension structurally between Lalas and Gullit, that extended to Pete, who Gullit thought was feeding negative information to Lalas, who would then go to Tim Lewieke."
- "In 2003, Byrne became Beckham’s personal manager. Knowing all of that, of course I wanted to speak with him. I found it interesting that Simon Fuller was made available to me-a much more famous and wealthy guy, creator of American Idol-but they did not make Terry Byrne available to me. He has never done an interview that I know of since Beckham’s arrival in 2007."
- "I did everything I could to get the Beckham side’s take on a lot of events in the book, and I did in part from talking to people from his side on background. Beckham’s side didn’t really want to have their names on a lot of stuff because they viewed that as making this an authorized book. I wanted to get as many takes as possible on things, so thankfully I was able to talk to sources on Beckham’s side and get their take on stuff, but I do think Beckham’s people and Terry Byrne will wish that they had maybe been a little more available and willing to talk to me for the book, because they would have had probably a bigger influence on the narrative."
- "It was certainly a process how I learned things, even with Lalas, who was extremely forthcoming. I’ll be honest with you; I learned a lot more after he was fired. Once he was fired he was a lot more willing to speak in detail about what had really happened and what he had been dealing with. Even publicly when Gullit was hired, Lalas said all the right things about this being a perfect hire when in fact, he had counseled Tim Lewieke and Terry Byrne against hiring Gullit."
- "Nobody ever made it public that David Beckham’s personal manager was brought in as a paid consultant to the team."
- "Landon Donovan did not know until the Spring of 2009 that Beckham’s handlers had anything to do with requesting that David take over the captaincy from Donovan."
- "I think the best way to put it is that Landon is not going to be blindsided by what is in the book or what he is saying in the book. How that plays out publicly or privately between him and Beckham, honestly, I have no idea."
- "Further to the point, can you imagine what went down over the last two years with the Galaxy happening at any other franchise in any other pro sport?: I can’t."
ETA: According to Wahl's Twitter, there's a Beckham press conference today. ~Upcoming drama?~
This Is American Soccer has an awesome interview with Grant Wahl all about the book, how he wrote it (some people were all like "well how can he know all these detailed conversations?!?!"), the Galaxy, and sports journalism.
- "The original plan for the book was just for me to follow that first season-first half season really. And do it in real detail and write an 80,000-word book about that."
- "I have to give a lot of credit for people who had agreed to speak to me one-on-one in 2007 at the start of things when everyone was so optimistic, and then when things started falling apart on the field, at least in 2008, a lot of those guys could have just told me to buzz off, and they kept sitting down with me and talking-guys like Landon Donovan and Alexi Lalas, Chris Klein, Alan Gordon."
- "But when I brought the idea of the book to Beckham’s people, even though we had always had a very good relationship, their stance was that David had done books before that were “by David Beckham, ghost written by somebody else” and that he got significant advances for those books-over a million dollars. The implication being, if I wanted to have special one-on-one access to David Beckham for this book itself, that was the sort of money that had to be paid."
- "Alan Gordon to me is very symbolic of the MLS player. So many players in MLS, most of them American, make almost no money-Gordon made $30,000 for four years and only later got a bigger contract, which was still not guaranteed."
- "Yeah, I think the 2008 season was really hard for Pete. He was the longest reigning Galaxy player at that point and had been the captain of the team when they won the title in 2005, and he really bled for the Galaxy. He just had a rough time with Ruud Gullit. I remember Pete saying he would remember 2008 because of the birth of his first child and how great an experience that was, but other than that, 2008 was pretty tough. Pete was working a real difficult locker room situation where everyone knew he was really close friends with Alexi Lalas, and because there was built in tension structurally between Lalas and Gullit, that extended to Pete, who Gullit thought was feeding negative information to Lalas, who would then go to Tim Lewieke."
- "In 2003, Byrne became Beckham’s personal manager. Knowing all of that, of course I wanted to speak with him. I found it interesting that Simon Fuller was made available to me-a much more famous and wealthy guy, creator of American Idol-but they did not make Terry Byrne available to me. He has never done an interview that I know of since Beckham’s arrival in 2007."
- "I did everything I could to get the Beckham side’s take on a lot of events in the book, and I did in part from talking to people from his side on background. Beckham’s side didn’t really want to have their names on a lot of stuff because they viewed that as making this an authorized book. I wanted to get as many takes as possible on things, so thankfully I was able to talk to sources on Beckham’s side and get their take on stuff, but I do think Beckham’s people and Terry Byrne will wish that they had maybe been a little more available and willing to talk to me for the book, because they would have had probably a bigger influence on the narrative."
- "It was certainly a process how I learned things, even with Lalas, who was extremely forthcoming. I’ll be honest with you; I learned a lot more after he was fired. Once he was fired he was a lot more willing to speak in detail about what had really happened and what he had been dealing with. Even publicly when Gullit was hired, Lalas said all the right things about this being a perfect hire when in fact, he had counseled Tim Lewieke and Terry Byrne against hiring Gullit."
- "Nobody ever made it public that David Beckham’s personal manager was brought in as a paid consultant to the team."
- "Landon Donovan did not know until the Spring of 2009 that Beckham’s handlers had anything to do with requesting that David take over the captaincy from Donovan."
- "I think the best way to put it is that Landon is not going to be blindsided by what is in the book or what he is saying in the book. How that plays out publicly or privately between him and Beckham, honestly, I have no idea."
- "Further to the point, can you imagine what went down over the last two years with the Galaxy happening at any other franchise in any other pro sport?: I can’t."
ETA: According to Wahl's Twitter, there's a Beckham press conference today. ~Upcoming drama?~