One member of the Los Angeles Galaxy staff said yesterday that “it felt like Christmas morning”. David Beckham was on his way across the Atlantic and, while no one can be certain what his presence will bring to the Major League Soccer (MLS) team in the long term, there is no doubting the immediate impact. More than 550 representatives from the media are expected at today’s press conference here from territories as disparate as Iceland, South Korea, Australia and Alaska.
The Galaxy have certainly succeeded in grabbing the world’s attention with their luring of Beckham. The second-worst team in the Western Conference of MLS will be famous far beyond their achievements, which is why, for now at least, the Galaxy PR men and the shirt-sellers cannot believe their luck.
Beckham and his family arrived in Los Angeles International Airport shortly before 8.20pm local time yesterday, and were greeted by dozens of photographers positioned behind barriers.
How long the hype will last is far harder to estimate. Pel? joined the debate yesterday when he said that US football had come a long way since the mid-Seventies when he was the original saviour of soccer in North America. “When I was here, it was very hard,” he said, talking in New York under a billboard bearing Beckham’s face. “They weren’t used to soccer then but with Beckham, everything is organised.”
According to the former New York Cosmos star, that means Beckham will not be able to take it easy. “He must be prepared,” Pel? said. “The level of the other teams is now very good. You see it in the World Cup, in the Gold Cup. The US have moved forward in football.”
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Comparisons to Pel?’s time in the now defunct North American Soccer League (NASL) are inevitable, but experienced watchers of US soccer fear that being mentioned in the same breath as the Brazilian great can only hurt Beckham. The England international has already revealed his own concerns that many fans coming will expect him to score hat-tricks every week. They will be expecting the skills of Ronaldinho or Ronaldo for the relatively vast outlay – his basic salary of $5.5 million (about £2.7 million) is more than 50 times the MLS average.
Giorgio Chinaglia, Pel?’s attacking teammate with the Cosmos – and who was villainised in the brilliant Once in a Lifetime documentary about the boom-and-bust of NASL – believes that Beckham’s inability to beat men and score goals from open play may come as a disappointment to his new audience.
“He’s almost a special teams player – like an American football player – and the Galaxy are struggling,” said Chinaglia. “They have a good coach [Frank Yallop, the former Canada and Ipswich Town defender] but that’s not enough.”
Chinaglia also expressed widespread concerns about whether too much attention, and money, is being lavished on one player. The MLS hierarchy even reshaped the entire league schedule around Beckham’s arrival so that it can parade its new star around different cities in the first few weeks.
So much has been invested in Beckham that one player is not just bigger than a team but than a league. Allowing the Cosmos to outgrow their club rivals with a succession of star signings such as Pel?, Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto and Chinaglia was a significant reason for the downfall of the NASL. The former Italy striker has urged the MLS to try to be more egali-tarian. “I don’t think that Beckham alone can do it,” he said. “Chicago have got Cuauht?moc Blanco, the Mexico international, but you need at least 50 players of that character.”
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Others simply hope that Beckham has a halo effect on the league. He has been welcomed by local rivals Chivas USA despite the fact that LA’s other team are certain to be overshadowed. “We feel this chaos is going to be good chaos because there’s going to be more of a focus on this sport in the US,” Javier Leon, the Chivas USA general manager, told the LA Daily News.
And chaos it is likely to be tomorrow when Beckham appears at the Home Depot Centre for the first day’s work of his five-year contract.