Beckham just kicks it around
Talks about teammate’s feud, state of the US game
David Beckham strolled into a back room in a Cambridge hotel, yawning. He stood on a gaudy red carpet in a room built for seven or eight. It was not the mobbed rush he had grown used to in England, where he had once captained the national team of the national sport, or Italy, where he had spent about half of his year playing for AC Milan.
No, he was at the Los Angeles Galaxy media availability time talking mostly to reporters who wanted to ask questions about his whether his wife Victoria, a.k.a. Posh Spice from the Spice Girls, is going to replace Paula Abdul on “American Idol,’’ and they wanted him to confirm it.
Beckham welcomes those questions hungrily and turns down nothing. Even in the back room of this hotel, he commands the entire area. At the end, professional photographers line up to take pictures alongside the 34-year-old, and he obliges.
Teammate Landon Donovan made headlines weeks ago when he was quoted in a book in which he questioned Beckham’s commitment to his MLS team. He was referencing Beckham’s frequent pond-skipping to and from Italian League Serie A - a loan that lasted a month into his MLS season this year - and his ready embrace of his own celebrity.
But Beckham takes the book and the feud that stemmed from it as proof that his five-year, $32.5 contract with the Galaxy is actually working.
“That’s how I look at it: When you do have success off the field, there’s more of a focus on you as a team,’’ said Beckham. “People look for criticisms, or try to knock the organization or the ideas they’re bringing to this game in the US when you have that success.’’
Beckham believes that in order for there to be a public feud, there has to be an audience for it.
This one certainly does.
Last month, Galaxy fans booed him every time he touched the ball during a home game because of Donovan’s comments. After firing back at a fan while exiting the game, the fan jumped down 8 feet from the stands in an attempt to get at Beckham.
Weeks later, after a few meetings with coach Bruce Arena and Donovan, his Galaxy teammate and Team USA captain, everything has finally cooled.
“I don’t think we’ve ever discussed it as a team, but David, Landon, and myself have discussed it. If anything, it has made us better,’’ said Arena.
Beckham’s Galaxy drew 93,137 fans last Saturday when they lost to UEFA champion FC Barcelona at the Rose Bowl. It was the largest crowd at a US soccer match since the 1994 World Cup.
“When the Galaxy travel to different places in the US, there’s always big crowds. As a team and as a player, you want to play in front of those crowds. We need to continue that interest in the game here in the US,’’ said Beckham. “If we can continue that, we can keep growing.’’
Beckham and the Galaxy will play at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough tonight against the New England Revolution, where the team drew 39,256 fans in his last visit. The Revolution attracted 12,014 in their last home game against Toronto FC.
Now, even Donovan senses a shift in the sport’s popularity. He thinks the bigger draws at stadiums came from Team USA’s second-place finish in June’s Gold Cup.
“The thing that we’ve done this summer, is that there has been a steady momentum of soccer," said Donovan. "People are interested and I’ve noticed since I’ve been back from South Africa a noticeable uptake in interest, people noticing us, recognizing us, talking to us, talking about soccer. It’s on TV all day and we like that, we enjoy that.”
As for his plans when his Galaxy contract is up in 2011, Beckham said, “I still want to be involved. I want to be an ambassador of the league. There’s a deal in place where I can purchase an MLS team or start a franchise. It’s something I am definitely interested in, or I wouldn’t have it in my contract.’’
Correction: Because of a reporting error, Los Angeles Galaxy soccer player Landon Donovan was quoted incorrectly in a story about teammate David Beckham in Saturday’s sports section, thus misidentifying the name and location of a soccer tournament. In speaking about the success the US men’s national team has had this summer, Donovan referred to the Confederations Cup, played in South Africa.
