Now that David Beckham has played his last act in an American soccer role, what is next for the Englishman abroad? Having spent the last five years in Hollywood making friends (Tom Cruise and Russell Brand are mates), casting agents must be wondering if Mr. Beckham desires the spotlight of the silver screen.
Throughout the regular season, teams can take it or leave it when it comes to winning and losing. Not so in the Cup Final. The memory of loss in the big game hangs around necks heavier than the runners-up medals handed out to the vanquished.
You run a top-flight English club. You are bleeding points. Leaks are everywhere, players pissed off, morale thin, and the puddle deep with fans abusing the idiot you hired last year to bring success. The investors never intended their wealth to be on the Titanic. What to do? You send out an S.O.S.
David Beckhamwill play his last game for Los Angeles Galaxy in the MLS Cup Final against Houston on December 1 in Los Angeles.
In 2007, he rolled into soccer town with a show. Beckham brought the big top to a little circus. Major League Soccer needed a new act, someone who could crack celebrity's whip and park the audience in the soccer tent for gasps of excitement.
1. Avoid the wisdom of television commentary. No longer will you have to risk tackles on the obvious from the pundit class. Take this gem attributed to a former well known coach turned pundit,"I believe in the principle that if you go one goal down, you need two to win." Turn it off.
2.Participate in one of those Poznan shoulder-bracing, back to front type goal celebrations (pictured), reaffirming your belief in the power of backwardness and the chance at actually hugging another person for the first time in twenty years.
The weeds thrived on the deserted steps. Brittle concrete swept up by the blustery wind fertilized the void. I stood solitary in a stadium built to hold 25,000 people, separated by fifty yards from the nearest fan watching our team. Some of the few present may have harbored decades old memories of the roars that once sang loudly here.
Give up comparing soccer to the nation's dominant sports. Baseball and Football don't do comparisons they exist alone. No point in soccer warriors climbing the walls of their impenetrable castles chanting,we're going to be bigger than you one day!Forget it. They'll throw their balls at you and knock you off.
Americans of all creeds gathered to grab a blue shovel to build a home the new domain of the San Jose Earthquakes. On Sunday, a world record crowd of 6,256 fans grabbed shovels and dug for two minutes on the land destined to spring forth a new era in Bay Area soccer. The man from the Guinness Book of World Records gave his assent and the deal was done.
Some teams are forever rubbish. Their hopes are in the trash; they are always in the trash. They get dumped from every tournament routinely. They exist to make up the numbers, goal-scoring practice for opponents. The nose of defeat means nothing to them. The senses are numbed. They'll never smell the roses, never be handed flowers by natives on their arrival for a World Cup Finals.
(Alex Ferguson with Celtic's legendary coach, Jock Stein)
Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson. Yes, he will be sculpted in bronze outside Old Trafford when the time comes. When the sculptor chooses the base for the statue, granite should be ordered. For it is in the "granite city" of Aberdeen in northeast Scotland that Ferguson's hardened coaching mould was cast.
Portland, Oregon Portland is soccer mad. I stepped off the plane to see Portland Timbers merchandise everywhere. Even a fast food burger joint was selling scarves and hats along with the fries.
The city was buzzing with anticipation. Seattle Sounders were in town for a nationally televised MLS game on NBC last Saturday.
US soccer will never be #1; it doesn't have a street game. Isn't that what they say? No shoeless street urchins knocking around a ball made from socks as raw sewage flows across the scrap landed penalty box. Look at England, the first world version of this fantasy, and hail the working class soccer legend.
Soccer-lite. That sums up the US men's national team performance against Jamaica yesterday. As
if the players had been sinking Bud Light while the Jamaicans were hitting the hooch. The US
performance was thin and weak. And it is time for coach Jurgen Klinsmann to flush it away before it
is too late.
I grew up in Scotland. The wee man was ubiquitous. And he could be dangerous. The big man was
wary. Don't annoy the wee man. His punch reached above his stature. You didn't see it coming. He
was down there. And you couldn't catch him. He was fast. It was the same on the soccer field.
One of Scotland's most famous clubs, Glasgow Celtic, fielded a player named Jimmy "Jinky"
Johnstone (pictured).
