• Featured |
  • Burton DeWitt
  • Vin Diec
  • Trevor Freeman
  • Diane M. Grassi
  • Gabe Kahn
  • Ryan McGowan
  • Kris Pollina
  • Matt Waters
  • Ray Yocke
  • -----------
  • Write for SC
  • Get Featured
  • Nominate
• blog |
• Journals

• NFL
• NBA
• MLB
• NHL
• College
• Other

• forums + |
  • Chat Room
  • Message Boards
  • Philly Message Boards
  • Photo Pool
• Submit |
• Help

Beckham Experiment will fail

By Scotty15, Section Other Sports
Posted on Fri Aug 10 2007 at 6:29 PM EST
More on: David Beckham, soccer (all tags)

Soccer superstar David "Bend It Like" Beckham won't revive soccer in the United States.

Beckham claims he can make you relevant in this country. Major League Soccer believes you can crack this country's four most popular sports. Neither of which will happen.

Go ahead. Bring in another David Beckham-type, or whomever else. Put Jesus in shinguards. Superman, sign him up. God. Zues. Anybody. It won't make a difference, because only you want you to grow. Nobody else cares.

They care about football, basketball, baseball, and even NASCAR. You had a chance to win them over last summer in the World Cup, but choked hard, becoming more of a laughing stock.

Soccer, you had the nation buzzing with the possibility that U.S. soccer could excel. Experts told us such. They said the 2006 team boasted the most talented roster in history. And four years after a surprising run to the World Cup quarterfinals, the team looked primed to advance further. Our country would finally matter on the sporting world's biggest stage.

Not so fast. Then that team, so ready to pounce, coughed up a hairball.

The U.S. finished 0-2-1. Three and out. Not exactly the long run we expected. More of a short jog around the block, one that left the team and its homeland embarrased before the world.

That was your big chance.

The best U.S. team ever, oozing with talent, ready to take the world by the throat. And that's the result? One tie? Work on winning before worrying about popularity.

America loves football, basketball and baseball. It has a crush on NASCAR, but things are getting serious. It doesn't love you. It avoids you, partly, because you're not its type -- entertaining.

Football has fancy moves and crunching tackles. Basketball has eye-poping slam dunks. Baseball has towering home runs. NASCAR has brutal crashes. You have...thrilling...0-0 ties?

How can you excite people when 1-0 constitues as a blowout? People don't want to watch almost two hours of a ball kicked back and forth. It's like watcing "Pong: The Movie."

So here comes the all-mighty David Beckham, sent to boot you back onto America's sports radar.

But wait. Anyone notice he will attempt this while on the league's second-worst team? That's a big hint as to his intentions.

The 32-year-old midfielder says he didn't sign with the Los Angeles Galaxy for the money or California lifestyle. He came for you, soccer, and to win, so he says.

Bull.

He doesn't care about his expected $250 million income? And Beckham, no stranger to paparazzi flashes, just happened to sign in arguably the most red-carpeted city on Earth?

Athletes looking to win don't sign with bottomfeeders in big, lavish cities. They seek contenders. They play in any city, so long as a championship remains realistic. The Galaxy's only chance for a championship might be the Calfornia High School Athletic Associatiton title.

OK, let's say he wanted a challenge. That he sought to bring a team from worst to first. Why did he choose the MLS, soccer's WNBA?

Forget Major League Soccer. A more fitting title would be Little League Soccer, because compared to the world's top leagues, the MLS is a joke, a midget in a land of giants.

Beckham usually plays in the big leagues, not tee-ball. What is his challenge? Playing with a Hollywood party hangover?

You got played. Beckham came to L.A. for the the city's V.I.P. treatment. And you gave him a free pass.

The man has nothing more to prove. He won league titles with Manchester United and Real Madrid, two of the best teams in the world. He also captained England's national team for six years. It's the autumn of his career. He wants to unwind, yet stay in the public eye. Signing with L.A. convieniently allows that.

Once The Beckham Experiment flames out, you will, once again, fall on your face -- and further down the importance list.

A top-four sport?

Sorry, soccer. Even with Beckham, it won't happen.