Smoldering Beck-age; a legitimate analysis
>> Monday
As in "wreckage."
It's been some amount of time since David Beckham's 2007 MLS season drew to a close. Now that the dust has settled and the doomsday predictions and knee-jerk reactions have fallen by the wayside, it seems only fair that since I did a preview piece to the start of the Beckham era, it seems only fair that I do some sort of wrap-up piece to the first season of "Beckhamania."
The first thing I want to say is, I saw this coming. The other writers on this blog know me well enough to know that I'm kind of a dick when I think I'm right, and I'm an even bigger dick when I'm validated. Sure, I foresaw the inability of Becks to meet the Bristol Hype Machine. That was easy to call, you say? Well, that post enables me to hide in a little less shame from my MLS season preview, where I very incorrectly predicted the Galaxy would win the MLS Cup. (Los Angeles is presently 4-11-5, a mark good enough for last place. They're not eliminated from the playoffs yet, but it's not too big a stretch to imagine the postseason without Becks, Landon, Cobi & Company.)
So what happened? Who screwed up? In a nutshell, everything happened, and everyone screwed up, and in the end, just about everyone suffered.
MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
The first place to lay blame is at the swanky new office on 5th Avenue in New York City, home of the MLS League offices, and Commissioner Don Garber. In a move to be all things to all owners, MLS arranged a schedule that was backloaded with games for the Galaxy (They still have two matches in hand on every other team in the league). Basically, the league office knew there would be a demand for Becks, both in LA (To justify increases in season ticket prices for a team that missed the playoffs last year) and around the league (to justify bundling lackluster midweek contests into "Beckham Packs" to milk the demand.
The David Beckham Roadshow started shortly after he arrived.
It started with Becks being trotted out like a dalmatian at a dog show for the ESPN cameras back in July, a game where he made a token appearance in a meaningless friendly against Chelsea. Despite the irrelevance of the game, he sustained a hard tackle from a Blues defender that most certainly aggravated his ankle injury, which from medical reports, was seemingly held together with cobwebs and prayers. This set his recovery back, forcing LA's #23 to miss games in Dallas, Toronto, Colorado, New England, and two in Los Angeles. The League bet high on 23 White, and needed to recoup.
THE LOS ANGELES GALAXY (GM Alexi Lalas, Head Coach Frank Yallop)
When all was said and done, David Beckham made appearances in three MLS games (@New York, @DC United, Chivas USA, and two SuperLiga games (DC United, Pachuca). In those games, he made a valiant effort to rescue an LA team with a troubled midfield and a decimated back line. But it was not enough. Aside from a SuperLiga Semifinal victory over DC United, the Galaxy won only one game with Beckham on the roster (0-5-1 in MLS, 3-2 in SuperLiga). Pundits will point to this as a failure on Beckham's part to "elevate" the play of the Galaxy.
Sadly, Beckham actually did raise the Galaxy's level of play. The Galaxy's record is more a testiment to the same flawed premise that built Beckham's Real Madrid teams in the early part of the decade. "Sign a bunch of stars, throw them together in the same color shirt and hope they win games." Signing internationals and retaining veterans chewed up LA's already limited salary cap space. The resulting lack of cash left the Galaxy unable to sign or retain players in stop-gap positions, like the midfield and on the back line. Goalkeeper Joe Cannon was the best keeper in the league last year. He pitched a shutout against Chelsea's first team in the All-Star game, yet routinely gave up crooked number scorelines every night thanks to defensive pairings that were routinely overmatched. That falls to the GM, Alexi Lalas, and I would not be surprised to see him packing his bags in the offseason after failing to put together a playoff team for the past two seasons.
Coach Frank Yallop played the hand he was dealt. He had a lousy team with no depth, a bunch of washed-up money-pits (Cobi Jones, Abel Xavier, etc.), and as a result was forced to play Beckham more than he probably would have had the Galaxy not been bleeding goals, not producing anything on the offensive end and desperate for points in a crowded MLS Cup Playoff race. While he's not entirely to blame, he contributed to Becks' demise in his own way.
STEVE McCLAREN (English National Team Coach)
Beckham's play in the August game against DC United I largely attribute to the fact that England coach Steve McClaren was in the boxes that night at RFK Stadium. Beckham had been under pressure to perform in England's European Championship campaign, which had fallen on hard times (perhaps ironically after new England coach McClaren dropped Beckham from his England squad last fall.) With Beckham wanting to break back into the English squad, and McClaren needing European victories to save his own ass (or arse?), Beckham was forced to accelerate his "recovery" to meet the English FA's needs. And it's not just Beckham who's been forced to play through sidelining injuries. Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard played for England in their recent 3-0 win over Israel despite a broken toe. I don't want to hear one more person say that soccer players are pansies.DAVID BECKHAM
Beckham himself is to blame, largely for neglecting his own health and fitness. Beckham was trying to be all things to all people, which is admirable, but here it was just not plausible. He wanted to be the celebrity everyone knew he would be, the leader everyone thought he could be, the ambassador-for-the-sport he thought he could be, and the England leader he hoped his coach would want him to be. Beckham's last act of hubris and perhaps utter neglect for his fitness was playing 90 minutes on the Giants Stadium field turf on Saturday, flying to London on Sunday (arriving Monday), playing 90 minutes in an intense international friendly against Germany on Wednesday, flying back to Los Angeles (only an 8-hour time change) to play in the LA Derby that Thursday night. A few days later, Beckham was on the bench, ice around his knee and his face in his hands, perhaps contemplating what might have been if he hadn't written checks to Steve McClaren and his body couldn't cash. From the Galaxy (July-August '07), to Real Madrid's Spanish season (July '06 to May '07) to England's World Cup bid (May-July '06) to Madrid's prior season (July '05 to May '06), Beckham never really got any time off to heal from the nicks and dings that players accumulate over time. 
Not just the Bristol-types, but the entire national sports media, who expected Beckham to be the "savior of American soccer," totally neglecting that MLS as a whole does not need saving (average attendance up, median attendance up, % of games under 10,000 fans WAY down, % of games with more than 20,000 fans WAY up) as well as failing to research basic aspects of the sport [On PTI, they were apparently unaware that you can play for a national team (England) and a club team (LA).], and forgetting the fact that the man is not a machine. If Kobe got hurt, it would be "Kobe's out 6-8 weeks," not "Why isn't Kobe playing? The fans bought tickets to see Kobe." Of Beckham's appearances, let's look at the television situation. Bold = Becks plays.
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8 comments:
Altoghether now...
"Soccer agaaain??!!!"
Hey, my last post was about baseball....kinda.
I naturally assumed that "Smoldering Beckage" is the phenomenon that women experience when they look at me. I proceeded to not read this post and just post this instead. Hooray, me.
After reading this for real, nice work. I actually found myself interested in this situation where I wasn't particularly interested before. Imagine that!
Yeah Mike, I usually skip the soccer stuff, but "legitimate analysis" was a legitimate subtitle.
do cash-in's ever work? across the field of sports, politics, music, movies how often does "I'm doing this solely because I'm making an obscene amount of money" ever really result in quality material? 1% of the time? it gave me a bad feeling about Beckham from the start.
Very good analysis. I have a couple of comments and additions. First, I don't necessarily disagree that LA was hobbled by "a bunch of washed-up money-pits," but I do disagree with the names you chose. Cobi Jones took a large salary cut to play this season -- I want to say about 50% -- and played solidly nearly every time he was put in. (You can't say that about a lot of Galaxy players this year.) His ability to move the ball down the wings is still amazing.
I'd also argue that Abel Xavier was the best mid-season acquisition the Galaxy made. Without him, believe it or not, the scoreline against the Galaxy would be even more pathetic.
Also, one other entity which deserves a fair amount of blame is Real Madrid. They rather cynically played an injured Beckham with a numbed-up ankle in order to win La Liga, leading to significantly more ligament damage than he would have sustained otherwise. The sad part is, he wasn't particularly effective in the last game; the offensive impact came from his replacement. But the damage had been done. Afterwards he didn't receive anything resembling the treatment he should have because he was no longer their problem.
Thanks for a solid analysis of the Beckham situation.
Thank you for being one of the few voices in the wilderness to point out the fact that the MLS is not tottering on the edge of oblivion, and hence doesn't need a savior.
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