Comfortable Disappearance

I’ve become a tremendous fan of futbol (soccer) in the last year. It all started with my good friend, Steve, convincing me to attend a D.C. United game with him. After 20 minutes, I was hooked. The supporters jumped and sang chants for the entire game. Every time a goal was scored, beer flew in the air (an expensive celebration at stadiums, I assure you). The energy at soccer games in unrivaled, and cannot be experienced unless you attend a professional game. I only hope someday I can attend a Premier League game in England, Serie A in Italy, or the Spanish Primavera.

Alas, I digress…Sports Illustrated recently published an opinion piece by Chris Mannix where he explains his conversion from soccer hater to soccer appreciator. It’s a great piece, and I hope it will spur more Americans into giving the World’s most popular sport a chance.

Congrats to Manchester City on their victory over Manchester United today.

Thursday night (8/9/07), I went to the DC United v. LA Galaxy match at RFK Stadium. Of course, this match brought a tremendous amount of press with it, because Beckham hadn’t yet played in the US for an MLS game. This match sold out several weeks ago, and thanks to my friend, Steve, I had tickets. Given the amount of hype surrounding the match, I’ve been asked several times about how I feel about Beckham.

I played soccer several years ago, but had fallen out of touch with the game for several years. I’ve recently become much more interested in it and have had several conversations about what Beckham means for the game. So, here’s my public statement on what David Beckham means for MLS.

It’s great that someone is bringing attention, media, and money to MLS. American soccer is by no means as exciting to watch as the FA Premier League or some of the other World Cup leagues, but it’s a great sport and the athletes deserve a lot more attention and notoriety.

With that said, I definitely think that Beckham’s skill does not equal his talent. We had/have players like Freddie Adu and Landon Donovan, but it’s rare that games draw 46,686 fans like last night’s game, which is unfortunate. Adu is arguably a much better player than Beckham, and Donovan is definitely no slouch either (and plays for the Galaxy).

I also fear that the MLS will pursue talent like Beckham at the expense of the league due to the outrageous sums that they are willing to pay popular players. It seems every sport has far too much money thrown around at hyped players, but it would be nice to see some of them keep a little sanity.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Beckham’s membership in the MLS changes American’s viewpoints of such a great game. I’ll never hold out belief that more people will play soccer than baseball (like American Sports Data currently estimates is true for skateboarding v. baseball), but it would be great to have more people attend games and be into the sport.