Author: Gerry Maravilla
Aside from drugged and drunk celebrities, fairly terrible Hollywood blockbusters and endless political scandals, there is one name that no one is the world can escape: David Beckham. The international football star (soccer for us Yankees) made his debut this July playing for Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy club franchise.
Before the midfielder from England even took to the field, there was media frenzy. In fact, before he even stepped foot on a plane there was a push for all-Beckham merchandise. The hope was that Beckham and the stardom that comes along with his name would be the savior of our country’s soccer league. Prospects looked good after Beckham’s name was all over every major media outlet throughout the globe and Galaxy jerseys were selling through the roof. But there was a problem. In his last game with his former club, Real Madrid, Beckham injured his left ankle and wasn’t able to start as soon the fans, MLS, and corporate endorsers wanted him to.
Beckham soldiered along by playing as a substitute for a few games and was able to score his first goal against old Galaxy rival D.C. United. But unlike most athletes, Beckham was not given the opportunity to relax and let his injury heal. The pressure and taunting he received for being paid so much and playing so little affected his ego, ticket sales and the general buzz that had been generating-so Beckham went into overdrive.
Rather than take time off to fully recover, he played full 45-minute matches for his new club and even back-to-back games with the Galaxy and the English National Team. Following a second injury in the Super Liga Final against Mexican team Pachuca, Beckham was told he must be out for at least six weeks to let both injuries heal. The dream of Beckham coming from overseas and sparking the same zeal for soccer here in the United States as it is felt in the rest of world has become something of a nightmare. What seems to be the saddest thing is that it is not the Englishman’s fault.
Can you really blame him for his injury? Can you really question his devotion after playing two full back-to-back games on two separate continents? This country has a long way to go in understanding the game of soccer or at least in having realistic expectations of its athletes. All the money in the world cannot heal an injury in a matter of days, let alone hours. Beckham is not a “pansy” for not wanting to play and risk his health simply to sell a few more seats. The attacks against Beckham are misguided, and the criticism he receives should be directed at Major League Soccer itself.
The MLS is not taken very seriously by other soccer fans around the world. Fans accuse it of having poor scheduling, a bad playoff layout, terrible field conditions, not enough talent and too much boring, in general. The Galaxy team’s signing of Beckham is just one example of the league’s attempt to sign older, big name players to draw viewers from other leagues. Mexican star Cuauhtémoc Blanco was signed to the Chicago Fire franchise and has already made a big impact on his team’s rankings. But for all of Blanco’s success, he has been unable to draw the majority of his fans away from watching his former team in the Mexican league. This strategy is misguided and will only further add to the criticism the MLS receives. Instead of producing some of the world’s top soccer talent, the franchise is heading the direction of becoming the league in which players make their last monetary stop before retirement. This strategy has already been executed and failed by the MLS in the past when it signed Luis Hernandez, Jorge Campos and Francisco Palenica.
The arrival of Beckham does have soccer on Americans’ minds and it would be best if the MLS would start fixing its internal problems-perhaps by making the MLS a more competitive league that creates its own stars rather than relying on already-established ones. It needs to address its scheduling issues and get rid of artificial turf fields. Maybe then many soccer fans already living here in the United States could turn away from La Liga in Spain, Premiership in England and La Liga Azteca in Mexico and turn their attention to the teams and franchises right in their local cities.
One of my best memories this summer was not in a movie theater or reading some supermarket tabloid-it was sitting behind the goal as Beckham bent the ball like only he could into the top left corner of the net and hearing the stadium roar with applause.
Gerry Maravilla is a junior Art History/Visual Arts major. He can be reached at gmaravilla@oxy.edu
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