us soccer - in defence of beckham

letthegoodtimesroll

(paddy, flash - there that adds a charlton content)...anyway, all this bollox being spouted in the press about how beckham wont find it so easy because us soccer has progressed a lot...fck me, the bloke has just won a champions medal in spain with real madrid, he's been playing in the champions league, world cup qualifiers, his pedigree is captain of england and ex man utd where he won every club competition under the sun...and they say he's going to find the standard of football in the us harder than he thinks...beggars belief...

WSS

the problem is that he can do as many pin point crosses and across the field passes but if people are not on his wavelength then he will look poor.

Maybe a bit like when Simmonsen came to Charlton, just too far ahead of everyone else on the field.

I personalyl think Becks is a superb player but i still don't think he will do that well out in the US.

letthegoodtimesroll

true but simmo got around that by being the third team on the pitch and left the other two to catch up...

BlackForestReds

Maybe a bit like when Simmonsen came to Charlton, just too far ahead of everyone else on the field.

............

American football isn't as poor as Charlton were in the early 80s though...

I think the problem he'll have is that LA Galaxy aren't a particularly strong side and the stories will be Beckham fails to score, Galaxy lose again...

Currently they are second to bottom in their division:
http://la.galaxy.mlsnet.com/standings/index.jsp?team=t106

eeladdick

does he have a get out clause if they get relegated ? ;-)

Nug

I don't think you can get relegated over there, franchise sports and all that. I used to watch Chicago Fire when I lived there for a bit, I thought it was quite poor. Americans are physically very fit and technically very good, but there just doesn't seem to be a lot of instinct when it comes to 'soccer'.

Stoitchkov was playing there when I watched he was completely overweight but looked a cut above everyone else. Any of the decent yanks are in Europe. It's also played in the heat of the summer which makes it a bit slow to watch.

Sco

[cite]Posted By: Nug[/cite]Any of the decent yanks are in Europe

Henry will be pleased to hear that! Beckham does seem to come back well from people putting him down. A lovely player surrounded by too much hype (which he does court) he makes a good team better, but cannot carry a rubbish one.

Nug

I do think he'll raise the profile of US soccer considerably, the states are obsessed with celebrity and entertainment, so he'll definitely get it noticed but the Sports press over there are quite vicious in their hatred of soccer, and will do everything they can to belittle any on-field achievements. They'll never allow Baseball, Basketball or Gridiron to be competed against. They don't like sports they can't be world champions at!

By the way I thought Gibbs looked decent the other night, a bit hesitant in the tackle but I guess that's to be expected after his nightmare injuries.

guinnessaddick

250,000 beckham LA shirts sold can't be bad.

BlackForestReds

Real Madrid claim to have made around 300m Euros from merchandising on the Beckham name.

mascot88

[cite]Posted By: BlackForestReds[/cite]Real Madrid claim to have made around 300m Euros from merchandising on the Beckham name.

Dosnt surprise me at all... no wonder capello got axed ... also this fella has always exceeded even against adversity... im in the vinny jones camp from that article that was on here but theres just a little bit of me that can see how 5 years from now the sport over there wil be 10 fold what it is now..

WSS

[cite]Posted By: mascot88[/cite]Dosnt surprise me at all... no wonder capello got axed ... also this fella has always exceeded even against adversity... im in the vinny jones camp from that article that was on here but theres just a little bit of me that can see how 5 years from now the sport over there wil be 10 fold what it is now..

Isn't that what they thought in the 70's when Pele, Best etc started going over there?

Would we be equally accepting of NFL, NBA or MLB games while football was still on in this country?

mascot88

Fair shout wss ..... and like i said its only a litte bit of me that thinks that itll grow, even ten fold wouldnt make a dent in any of those main sports in the US.....

Its also the pull off football in general, here in Oz its growing rapidly there was even rumours that robbie fowler landed here to take a look at Sydney FC this week, and big names can only be good for the sport in general... Im gonna be going to my first Melbourne victory match this season and im hoping theve got a clue....

excuse the gramma an all Ive had a few!

Rothko

They've managed MLS a lot better then they ever managed the NASL, and it's going from strenght to strenght. They've got companies like AEG who have deep pockets, and are willing to gamble a bit.

BlackForestReds

[quote][cite]Posted By: Rothko[/cite]They've managed MLS a lot better then they ever managed the NASL, and it's going from strenght to strenght. They've got companies like AEG who have deep pockets, and are willing to gamble a bit.[/quote]

AEG is Phil Anschutz and is doing the right thing in keeping a lid on expenses with wage caps etc, in time the franchises are being bought and in time there'll be more teams. Mostly MLS is being aimed at Mexicans and Hispanics rather than the baseball/basketball crowd and they are a much larger segment of the population and have far more spending power than before.

From what i've seen of MLS most teams would struggle in the CCC, but in five/ten years when America finds a few genuine stars then it might be different.

Oakster

I watch quite a lot of MLS & the standard is good - I think a lot of media "experts" are rushing to comment without watching any games for any significant period of time.

The US U-20 team is doing well in the World Cup, shame about hosts Canada who crashed & burned in spectacular style.

Anything over here that raises the profile of the game against the utterly dull traditional US sports is great.

vancouveraddick

The standard is getting better and better over on this side of the world and although they'll struggle to get the people that already watch NFL and baseball away from the sports the HUGE immigrant population especially from Latin America will mean the sport will continue to go from strength to strength. Here in Vancouver the whitecaps are playing the galaxy in October and they've sold 40,000 tickets for the game since sunday and I bet the majority who are going have either european or latin american heritage of some kind.