David Beckham using an M8

I too wonder why Beckham went to LA to play for a team that is by all accounts comparable to an English team in League 1, the third tier. Surely it couldn't be for the £125 million he'll get over the next two years? The offer from Galaxy came after he was dropped by England. Now he's reinstated, he may regret the move. But maybe not much, £125M will cushion the blow.

But I don't understand why Galaxy have paid this much for Beckham and no-one else? He's just one out of eleven, and it's no good making inch perfect crosses and 80' passes if there's no-one to get on the end of them. Beckham works hard, but he can't tackle, can't use his head or his left foot much. Good at what he does though, but he still needs another ten good pro's to get a result. He's played at Man U and Real Madrid surrounded by some of the best players in the world. This may be quite an experience in LA.

Whens the rugby world cup kick off? England, despite being reigning world champions will finish nowhere, I fear.
 
dazedgonebye said:
She looks like a natural...how many of us have never shot with the lens cap on?
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Hehe! I did and I do! As late as yesterday - twice!😀 :bang:
 
Yeah. Who cares about Beckham? Many of my american colleagues thinks that he's the most popular/greatest footballer in the world. Yeah, many people know him, but most people who know him hate him.

And greatest footballer in the world??? There're lots of people who can shoot freekicks and cross the ball like he does, they just don't have the media in england to make them popular. He's just a (slightly) above average player.
 
ywenz said:
😕 Everyone in LA knows:

Football is:

football.gif
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I don't think people in Louisiana would appreciate that assertion. I thought that was a guy with a helmet, running on a field, about to catch an American football. I guess that means I digress. But to each their own focus.
 
I don't doubt his magnificant soccer skills but this thread reminds me why our household is so cool to the mania of college sports here in the USA: we'll start to watch it when universities pay talented science, mathematics and English professors as well as they do their football coaches!

(I know David is a pro and not in college soccer but my point is still very relevent and valid.)

-g
 
Red or dead

Red or dead

Broadly speaking, apart from Wales and perhaps parts of France (not sure), rugby union has traditionally been the sport of the middle classes whereas football has been the sport of the working classes. NB for some northern English industrial mining/mill towns and villages rugby league has been the autumn/winter sport of the working class. Simply put though, the middle class called football "soccer" and so when it's referred to as "soccer" even now the (culturally) working class feel it somehow mistaken, even pejorative.

For the xenophobic and/or ignorant it fits just nice doesn't it; Americans don't know what football is so let them call it whatever they like because it's never going to be the real thing. But for me it's "football" and as Pele said "the beautiful game" and I really don't mind what anyone else calls it.

As for Beckham... well he was a good, hard working player for my team and no more than that but the best English midfield player of the past 20 years - ask anyone from Zidane to the scousers - is Paul Scholes. He was never gonna be GQ/Hello/Vanity Fair magazine front cover material and thank god for that.

In England, club football will always be more important than country. All that national flag waving crap just isn't for me and I know I'm not alone in thinking that.
 
American Football and Rugby are two different sports. Soccer (yes soccer) and International Football are the same as Futbol in Central and South America. Avocados are Alligator Pears.
 
I know they're different sports but I know nothing of NFL or the skills involved, and I'm not a fan of rugby. I was merely trying to suggest why most from these Isles don't like the word "soccer". I spent 3 years in Japan calling it "sakkaa" but I regarded that as simple translation and it didn't do me any harm.

Anyway, how about a poll along the lines of...

a. I'd luv it if Becks joined RFF
b. You wouldn't see me for dust if Becks joined RFF
c. I don't care I've got to get this report finished

I'd vote "c."
 
I've never seen Beckham play, but we (my family) are soccer, football, futbol (call it whatever you want to call it) fans, even way up here in Vermont. I prefer to take the more long-term view regarding Beckham coming to the US to play. Any publicity involving the sport will generate interest and attention. The more press the game gets, the more opportunity it will have to grow. In my very little corner of the world we've seen interest in, I'll call it soccer, grow tremendously in the last decade or two. The local high school is traditionally known as a "football (American) school", I played when I was in school thirty years ago. There was no soccer at this school, in fact only a handfull of schools offered soccer within the state. About ten years ago this high school began a soccer program which started as a coed junior varsity sport. Since then, the sport has flourished, to the point that more kids try-out for soccer than football and the girls (they have their own team as of a few years back) has even competed for the state championship. The summer soccer league that all of my kids (three high-schoolers) play in has grown in numbers of teams forming each year that it has existed, and even more impressive is the growth in the number of adult teams fielded each year. I've had the time of my life the last couple of years lacing up the boots and running around out there.

The point I want to make is that "the beautiful game" is growing in the US, in spite of the popularity of the NFL. It's a big country in a very big world, there's room for many sports to thrive. Every time a talk radio host, television commentator, or newspaper writer mentions soccer/futbol/international football, it puts it in front of more people who otherwise wouldn't take the time to learn about the game. Many watched Pele play with awe; that may not be the case with Beckham, but his very presence will hopefully give the game a little more attention and enable it to grow just a little more popular in the US.
 
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