Beckham agrees to LA Galaxy move

[MaineDem]

David Beckham will leave Real Madrid and join Major League Soccer side LA Galaxy at the end of the season.

The 31-year-old former England captain will sign a five-year deal, reportedly worth £128m.

Beckham said: "This week Real asked me to make a decision regarding their offer to extend my contract.

"After considering several options to stay in Madrid or join other major British and European teams, I have decided to join LA Galaxy."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/6248835.stm

Beckham and the Spice Girl are going Hollywood! Are they even still together? I'm so out of touch with my celebrity-sports couples gossip. :)

[Phredicles]

1. I love the Galaxy but I'm somewhat skeptical about this,

especially since he apparently wouldn't actually join the team until well after the season starts. We've had big names before, albeit not this big (Carlos Hermosillo, Luis Hernandez), and the results have been pretty disappointing. So I hope this is different.

(I would like it if we had MLS avatars as an option. I grew up in WA and the Seahawks are my first team, but I live in LA now.)

[Shadrach]

8. Can't expect much from him

He is a dead ball specialist and will score a lot in that manner but I don't think he is even that good. I guess this move is more for marketing than anything. It might be a good thing for the league to have some magazine star giving the league more attention and more attendance.

[northzax]

10. more than a dead ball specialist

he's still perhaps one of the two or three best passers in the world. (you will notice that he lead La Liga, the most technically skilled league in the world, in assists last year.)

He will have two major impacts, on the field. one is that he is famous for being a tireless worker and the consummate professional. Look at how he is handling Real's jackass behaviour, nothing. his teammates, by and large, like and respect him, even the ones who sandbag him in public (Raul, for instance, one of the people who most wants him gone from Real, says he's the hardest worker on the pitch, and 'has the best touch since Maradona' this is a guy WHO DOESN'T LIKE HIM saying this. When a Brazilian says you have touch, you have touch. Second is that he can put a ball in play like no one else. HE won't score a lot, he never scores a lot, he's a point guard, to mix metaphors, he sets up other players. He's Lemiuex, not Gretzky.

Becks will make the Galaxy a professional futball team. something that is sorely lacking in much of MLS. they will practice harder and play harder because he is there because that's what he does. And yes, he'll sell a lot of tickets.

[erpowers]

2. $250 Million

The Galaxy are going to pay him 250 for those five years. That works out to $50 million a year. That just makes me say wow.

[Captain Hilts]

3. I think part of the $250m is to bring Posh back to the States. nt

[T_i_B]

5. Are you sure it's not to stop her singing?

[spoony]

4. Well worth it

If this has the effect of broadening the appeal of MLS, or even drawing other players into the country, then this move will pay off for generations.

[hasbro]

6. It Won't

The NASl brought in Pele, Beckenbauer and still went under.

[Phredicles]

7. The NASL was badly mismanaged;

There was no salary cap, and most of the star players were on one team (Cosmos) - other teams spent themselves into oblivion trying to stay competitive. MLS has done a much better job managing its resources. I don't know if it'll ever be really big, but I am confident it'll last a good while.

[northzax]

9. and times have changed a bit

everone talks like it is still 1975 or something. Everyone under the age of 45 is at least familiar with soccer, even if they claim to despise it on principle. The Cosmos played on a broken down field PAINTED green with broken bottles and syringes. NASL was a semi-pro league that tried to go bigtime, thanks to Steve Warner's pocketbook, overnight. THe population is different, the money is different, the facilities are different. But everyone says the same thing, like it's 35 years ago still. Just go back to the disco already.

MLS may never be a bigtime sport, but it's doing ok, and growing well. not unsustainably, like NASL, but regular and well planned out growth.

it's amazing, really. everyone wonders about MLS, but on game days, DC United, outdrew the WAshington Nationals, in their second season, in the SAME stadium. Sure, there are more baseball games, yadda yadda. but on WEdnesday night and Saturday games, United outdrew the Nats. And yet, the Nats get a 700 million dollar stadium built for them where they will draw 18,000 on a wednesday night, and United, who draws 22,000 on a wednesday night gets to build their own stadium. without government subsidies, the NFL and MLB would collapse under their own weight in most cities, too.

[hasbro]

12. You are comparing a weak baseball team with a strong MLS team

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/soccer/20060927-9999-lz1s27goal.html

[Phredicles]

11. From this morning's LA Times:

I don't normally care for Stein's stuff (or the Times in general much any more, for that matter), but this mostly hit the right notes and was pretty damn funny:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-stein16jan16,0,4010360.column?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

[Phredicles]

13. BUMP - I don't think Becks can help us if the rest of the team sucks this bad;

I mean, :puke:

The last couple of weeks we've looked as bad as when Steve Sampson was coach. And that's pretty damn horrible.

With our one remaining good player Landon "Landycakes" Donovan with the National Team for the next several weeks I gotta wonder if we'll even score between now and Becks' arrival.

The DCU fans who're regulars here gotta be licking their chops for next weekend, to which I can only add, :puke::puke:

[northzax]

14. yes, we are looking forward to it

DCU got lucky in the Gold Cup callups (remember though, we will lose Jaime Moreno most likely for Copa America, which might actually be a good thing) and we can't wait for the Red Bulls to visit on the 10th so we can resume our rightful place as their masters.

And poor Alexi Lalas, signs a fading superstar only to find out that he's not fading all that much, Becks could miss six games (including MLS cup) for England duties. And yes, if England wants him for the game against Croatia on MLS cup day, and the Galaxy are in the cup, he's going to be in Split, not RFK.

I think the MiniGalacticos can surely win MLS using the current "kick the ball in Landon's direction and pray" strategy"...don't you?

[Phredicles]

16. Y'know, what I'd love to see, as long as MLS insists on playing games

opposite international matches, is a team full of players who're very good but just not quite good enough to be on the radar of their national teams.

Instead right now we have a couple of guys on the Galaxy who are national team perennials and lineup riddled with schlubs who'd be lucky to make any other roster in the league. So I'm not too worried about potential conflicts on MLS Cup day right now. Again, :puke:

[northzax]

19. well, you got lucky this weekend

Donovan isn't on the roster for the China game this weekend, at least:

GOALKEEPERS (3) - Brad Guzan (Chivas USA), Tim Howard (Everton FC), Kasey Keller (Borussia Moenchengladbach)
DEFENDERS (6) - Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham FC), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Jay DeMerit (Watford FC), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard de Liege), Frank Simek (Sheffield Wednesday), Jonathan Spector (West Ham United)
MIDFIELDERS (7) - DaMarcus Beasley (PSV Eindhoven), Michael Bradley (SC Heerenveen), Clint Dempsey (Fulham FC), Benny Feilhaber (Hamburger SV), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Jesse Marsch (Chivas USA), Lee Nguyen (PSV Eindhoven)
FORWARDS (3) - Charlie Davies (Hammarby IF), Kamani Hill (VfL Wolfsburg), Ante Razov (Chivas USA)

courtesy of Steve Goff at: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/2007/05/usa_roster_for_china_match.html

[Phredicles]

20. I was momentarily excited by the number of Goats on the roster, until

I remembered Chivas: The Cheap Spin-Off is off this weekend.

[northzax]

21. yes, nice of Bob bradley

to do that.

[Phredicles]

22. A 0-0 tie at home and I'm relieved. This is a bad season...

Apparently Capt. Landycakes was uncomfortable again this evening; good things rarely result from that.

[northzax]

23. hell, I am happy to get the point

if not for Nate Jaqua's inability to do anything, it would have been much worse.

how bout that EJ, though? back to back hats? wowza.

[nickgutierrez]

15. He's apparently in great form right now

Played a role in all three of Real's goals a week or so ago. It will be interesting to see how much of that makes its way stateside.

[northzax]

a post so nice

i made it twice .dupe...

[northzax]

17. indeed

of course, he gets to cross to the likes of van Nistelroy and Raul, not Landon Donovan and Cobi Jones now, so we'll see how well it transfers.

[Phredicles]

18. On that point, if we can get Nate Jaqua to stand still (not a big stretch) while

Becks bounces the ball off his cranium and into the net, we may be okay after all...

[Phredicles]

24. Re-Bump (I'm using this as a sort of de facto Galaxy omnibus thread)-

And I am very excited about the impending arrival of Carlos Pavon; he looks like the striker we've been missing since Carlos Ruiz was in his prime.

Plus, we finally won a game. It was only "Real" Salt Lake, but ya gotta start somewhere.

[northzax]

25. amazing, isn't it!

how the Galaxy always seems to be at the front of the allocation list when a good player shows up? Pavon will be a nice addition to Landycakes up front (heck, Pavon can actually score in meaningful games!) and he'll be a decent target for Becks, but let's be honest, you are the Galaxy, something will fuck it all up. :)

Vamos United!

[Phredicles]

26. We're at the front of the list even when we don't want to be (see Hernandez, Luis),

but this looks like a good one.

[northzax]

27. hey, when the salary cap doesn't apply

you can do wonderous things.

Seriously. Cap is roughly 2.2 million. I count, with Beck's $400,000 and (let's assume an allocation of $400,000 of Landycakes' $990,000) 2.75 million (including Xavier) before Pavon's $150,000 this year. Does this math make any sense to anyone?

on edit: as a fan, it's great to see stars, and surely Anschluss can afford the overruns. it's also great that other teams (like United) can compete without needing to break the bank. This season will, I think, be basically over for the Galaxy by the time Becks shows up, we shall see how they can manage to keep all these players together in 08...

[Phredicles]

28. I've been following MLS from Day 1, and I've never been able to figure out

when the rules apply and when they don't. But somehow it's worked much better than any of its predecessors.

Still, as I understand it the secret of our making our salary structure pass muster with the league is not paying the greater part of our roster bupkis.

[northzax]

29. by my count, you have the following:

Becks: $400,000
Landy: $990,000
Xavier: $156,000
Pavon: $150,000
Albright: $142,000
Cannon: $194,000
Marshall: $142,000
Vagenas: $131,000
Jaqua: $112,000
Quarantino: $100,000
Jazic: $108,000

by my math, that is: $2.62 million, before anyone comes off the bench.paying bupkus is great, but unless they are actually paying to play, you can't get under the cap (unless, of course, a special deal was worked with Donovan's cap hit, another special Galaxy deal.)

talk to us when you have more than one star on your jersey and we'll tell you how it's done.

[Phredicles]

30. Admittedly I'm not great at math but by my count 2 stars > 1 star.

At least I know who won what.

PS - And most of our hardware at least dates from the current century.:P

[northzax]

31. 02 was an abberration

no one really thinks that was an MLS season! :)

how's it feel to have as many points on the season as we've picked up in the last 8 days?

just out of curiosity...how'd y'all do in the Champions Cup this year? good?

[Phredicles]

32. Huh???

I'm sorry, I seem to have left my DCU-fan-living-in-the-ever-more-distant-past decoder ring at home. What was wrong with the '02 season?

[northzax]

33. if you don't know...

well then we shall keep you to your delusions.

who do you think has a better chance at making the playoffs? Toronto or LA?

[Phredicles]

34. I like our chances with Xavier and Pavon much better than without them.

[northzax]

35. so what is the LA media

saying about the extent of Becks' ankle issues? this would be an incredible blow to MLS, don't you think?

[Phredicles]

36. They're not saying squat: It's all Kobe-with-a-k all the time out here.

Seriously, if there weren't a Galaxy board where I also hang out, I wouldn't even know what you were talking about. I'd call the LA Times the Nate Jaqua of soccer coverage, except that at least ol' Nate tries.

[Phredicles]

37. That's what I'm talking about:

[northzax]

38. have you seen the new Becks campaign for Adidas?

with Reggie Bush? a remake of the classic Rugby kicking ad, I am sure. debuts this week. makes me salivate imagining Reggie Bush as a strikers...drool...