Beckham's American odyssey has been one big joke

It was the hope of invigorating Major League Soccer that David Beckham cited as one of the main reasons for his move to Los Angeles Galaxy two years ago. What a joke it was then and what a joke he has proven this fanciful notion to be.

While certainly raising the profile of the league for simply being  David Beckham, the man himself has done little on the ground to promote the game in the US. His upcoming move to Milan in January only goes to show his scant regard for the club that pays his ridiculous wages. Beckham has told Galaxy fans that his move to Europe is an attempt to stay fit and be ready for the start of the MLS season 09.

The notion that Beckham cares at all about the fortunes of his club or the league were put to bed long ago. Having lived in the States and followed the league it was obvious first hand that Goldenballs has more interest in being spotted courtside at LA Lakers’ games than doing anything to be seen as popularising his own sport.For instance he was courtside only two weeks ago when at the same time Columbus Crew were playing New York Red Bulls in the MLS Cup Final [in the US this is the match to decide the league title]. Why wasn’t he at that game? If he wasn’t at it he should have been in some studio or commentry box being part of the match analysis. The play-off series, of which Beckham’s Galaxy failed to qualify went on for a number of weeks prior to the cup final and again, the man who wants to see the growth of soccer in America, was  nowhere to be seen.

 He will,shortly, along with wife Victoria be initiated to the house of Scientology in a ceremony organised by self made bofoon Tom Cruise. This kind of Hollywood tomfoolery is typical of the ’star’ quality Beckham brings to the States. What kind of football quality has he brought? The Galaxy finished bottom of the league, Beckham doing more to harm the club than benefit it.

 Along with his agent Terry Byrne, Beckham instigated the exit of his initial coach at Galaxy Frank Yallop and the introduction of his successor Ruud Gullit. Gullit’s term was an absolute disaster stepping down before he was sacked. That the General manager and President of the club Alexi Lalas never fully agreed with Gullit’s appointement and subsequently never saw eye to eye with the Dutch man is testament to the huge and overpowering influence Beckham has had with the club. 

Now he heads off to Italy to gain match fitness for next season! I heard BBC’s correspondent for North American football Sean Wheelock recently state on radio fivelive that if you were to ask any player in the MLS what they thought of Beckham they would all say he is the ‘perfect professional’. This is simply untrue. Only last month I spoke with the San Jose Earthquakes’ right sided midfielder Ronnie O’ Brien and he told me exactly what he thought of him, saying that Beckham was in the league purely for his own gain and that the move to Milan was “obviously a ploy to stay in the England set-up”. Obviously, indeed.

At the recent Ricky Hatton fight in Las Vegas, Beckham was surrounded by an entourage of security, at an already tightly cordoned off post-fight party.Nobody in attentance could understand what this attention grabbing spectacle was about. The fact that he has not, or will not answer any hard questions on his move to Milan, on his disasterous footballing move to the Galaxy and the mess he has left at the club, seems lost on most.The only interviews he does now are managed closely by PR puppet master Simon Fuller. For instance, the last lengthy interview he gave on radio was with BBC’s Simon Mayo and was comprised with a litany of pc garbage such as ‘whats your favourite food?’ and ‘what do you miss most about home?’

 Like alot of European ex-patriots living in the States it is clear that Beckham too is scoffing on Major League Soccer and not giving it its due.While it plainly will never compete with America’s major sports in public popularity, it has its niche.

Away from the tacky carnival and  pyrotechnics of American tv football coverage, which usually has a loud and ilinformed commentator as well as in- studio pundits who haven’t a clue what they’re talking about,there is a real hardcore of fans within the country. Based in LA itself  World Soccer Daily is a radio show with its finger on the pulse of the MLS. Host Steven Cohen has led the way by telling Beckham to “piss off back to England” and allow new Galaxy boss Bruce Arena to get on with the job of rebuilding the club.

When I last saw him play it was on a summer’s evening in Bridgeview ,Illionois. After failing to make any impression on the game Beckham was walking off with his Galaxy teammates, only to turn around and run back accross the pitch to hurl his shirt into the crowd.This was typical of the man and sums up his time so far in American soccer. While failing to make any impact on the field he still feels he needs to be all things to all men.  At the moment Los Angeles Galaxy should  feel he is a man they could well do without.

NYT magazine has a video on photographer Robbie Cooper’s new project Immersion.

The cult of the video game is killing sport in the first world

World Cup 2010

As much as every country wants to get there, is it safe for the fan? It seems the answer is a definate no.The stats dont paint a pretty picture and as much as South African officials want us to believe that when it finally kicks off theirs will be the ‘greatest world cup ever’ the South African crime rate is one of the highest in the world. It calls into question the whole reasoning behind staging the world cup in the country at all.In a nation where poverty and thus in turn crime levels are so high it is hard to see the sense in pumping over E2.4 billion into a show case that will last for a single month. Is it not disgraceful?

It is now fourteen years since the end of Apartheid but the country remains hugely troubled with close to 21,000 murders a year with armed robberies, car high jackings and rape being committed on a monumental scale.Government annual crime statistics show that there are 150 women raped in South Africa every day.

After the 2006 world cup a group of german tour operators visited South Africa looking for suitable accomadation for fans going to the 2010 world cup. They were robbed. 

Set to take place in ten stadiums in nine cities across South Africa, five of the ten arenas are being built from scratch while the other five are existing stadiums being refurbished.Monitoring all this will be some 200,000 police, dressed in armoured vests and trained to use their firearms with deadly accuracy.

The brutal riots in may saw over 50 dead

Many critics of the upcoming world cup cite the riots across the country last May which ended in over 50 deaths as a warning sign of things to come. This notion is probably a huge exageration but the riots and subsequent deaths of so many immigrants trying to earn a living in the country shows the anger and desperation of so many natives living on next to nothing, or indeed, nothing at all.

The thought of being mugged or worse, is a real concern and an obvious turn off for many fans. But like Christiano Ronaldo bemoaning a wage of STG 120,00 per week in front of many fans who are being made redundant daily, is the money fuelled extravaganza of a world cup in their own backyards not goading or patronising to those who can’t feed their own kids? No matter how well the tournament is policed or sectioned off the very fact that fans will,in a sense, be flashing their cash behind a window of security is a disgrace and can only serve to incite violence.

Like China holding the Olympics before them it is high time South Africa got its own house in order before trying to sell us a lie.

Ireland v Poland

  Jones’s road on Wednesday evening was like the build up to a Legia Warsaw v Wisla Krakow Polish derby. There was nothing here to suggest a home nation in confident mood after a fairly positive start to the world cup campaign.The almost partizan atmosphere was created solely by the Polish, who were celebrating their identity abroad, while probably looking forward to going home.Many of Ireland’s supporters don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the moment, and so said nothing at all. 

Failure to even raise a whimper in the midst of the ‘Polska’ carnival, many in the crowd must have been contemplating their own pockets after forking out exorbitant prices for a friendly match that for 85 minutes was dominated by the Poles.

Fortunate enough to have gained access to the press box I was one of the lucky few who didn’t have to pay to see what was a genuinely pathetic display from Ireland. The scoreline of 2-3 might suggest an exciting game played box to box but it was only the last 5 minutes that illuminated, from an Irish point of view, this torpid dirge.

The gilded Irish Times writer Tom Humphries suggested that “we went home entertained and, for the most part happy.” How could any supporter be happy with a display that has finally shown up our huge inadequicies after being tested at last by a fairly decent side? The Polish side are no world beaters, granted, and God help us if Marcello Lippi has all his cogs well oiled come April. 

The decision to pursue the  central midfield partnership of Glen Whelan and Darren Gibson is baffling and they were again ran right through on Wednesday night. Indeed Whelan is no ‘Irish Gattuso’. He’s not even playing like Whelan now! His first match against Norway showed promise but since then he has been going steadily down hill.

It’s high time the media outcry for the inclusion of Andy Reid was tapered a little.Not even  a regular starter with Sunderland such an outcry shows up the incredible lack of depth in the Irish squad.  Andy Reid is no Liam Brady ,lets face it. Brady and co must obviously think that. His inclusion might give us some spark however, at some point in a game.

There is some credence in the notion that these encounters are pointless and meaningless exercises but Trapattoni didn’t exactly put out his B team. Bar the injuries to Steve Finnan, Steven Reid and Robbie Keane and their enforced replacements this was an Irish line up starting as they would in a World Cup qualifier under the Italian.

John O’Shea was one positive to be taken from the night and is finally finding his feet at centre-half.For once Richard Dunne played second fiddle to the Waterford man. Damien Duff had a few obligatory moments but his haul of just 7 goals from 71 games now, is way too paltry a sum for such an attacking and experienced player. A few more goals from Kevin Doyle wouldn’t do us any harm either.While the lad works hard he needs to be getting on the end of things a bit more.

Trapattoni is over looking a number of players who otherwise would be a shoe in for international call up. The Polish game was a perfect time to bring in Hamilton prodigy James McCarthy and put to bed any lingering notions he might have of opting to play for his native Scotland. Lee Carsley is the best holding midfielder Ireland have and yet for some reason he seems to be off the selection radar. Rory Delap has been single handedly beating teams with his missile throw-ins for Stoke but there seems to be no word of him at all.Also a few younger lads like Chris McCann of Burnley who has been their best player so far this season and Celtic’s new hero of the hour, Cillian Sheridan. Not to mention the forgotten man of Irish football, Ronnie O’Brien.Playing in the MLS as right sided midfielder for San Jose Earthquakes and earning a place on the MLS all star team of the season four years in a row ,he is making a mockery of David Beckham’s supposed star quality.

All was not lost on the night however, the post match press conference serving up the delightful cameo of Manuela- Giovanni’s translator.Her’s was the best performance from the Irish set up on Wednesday and she was light relief from the bumbling pigeon english of the Irish manager.The Irish hacks couldn’t help scoffing into their laptops as Trap came out with such enlightened nuggets as ‘Dunne is Dunne’ and the beautiful truth ‘after we lose I am sad’

What will be sad is if Ireland don’t qualify for the World Cup in South Africa.Trapattoni is seen by many as the man to bring back those great days on the football pitch during our last recession, an era where a collective spirit seemed to kick start a sleeping tiger. How we need it now.

“Many in Argentina feel it is better to have Diego inside the tent pissing out as opposed to outside the tent pissing in”- Tim Vickery

As he sets out to recapture past glories with Argentina Diego Maradona is already treading old ground and letting his heart rule his head, throwing the dummy from the pram if not quite pissing his pants just yet. 

Threathening to resign after only ten days in the job, it’s very much ‘as you were’ in the perfect life of the icon. And it has been perfect, like that great storm,where by some freak of nature allows it, allows everything to come together all at once,where divine beauty sways with the forces of Lucifer, where epic contradictions dance in perfect harmony, with eachother.

After formally announcing Maradona as ’technical director’ Argentine FA president Julio Grondona said he had realised a life long dream “since 1979 I’v been looking forward to having Maradona as coach of the national team……Maradona marked a turning point in Argentine football”. Much like Newcastle’s re-appointment of Kevin Keegan, it is a lesson in nostalgia and nothing much to do with common sense.

No sooner was he appointed than he was calling ‘foul’ on Grondona for the promotion of national youth team coaches Jose Luis Brown and Sergio Batista (former team mates of number 10) to assistant coaches.Maradona had wanted Oscar Ruggeiri as his assistant,also a former team mate but one who had previously fallen out with Grondona. That Maradona vented his spleen about this so publicly is typical of an irrational man whose fragile nerves may yet spell disaster for any hopes the country may have of World Cup success . It was a first spat (of many one would presume) that had assistant manager Carlos Bilardo jostling in the isles restoring calm.

The power of the icon that is Diego Maradona has single handedly, as it were, elevated him to national team manager. His managerial career so far has been significant only in its failure, having managed two Argentine club sides in the mid nineties (Deportivo Madiyu and Racing Club), ammmasing a total of 23 games with only 3 wins. With both sides he left before his contract was up. 

It would seem that many inside Argentina feel it is time to give Maradona his due and let him attempt to strengthen the legend, if only to see him on his way.

Everybody loves him yet as in all things Diego, nobody wants him.In a poll by Argentine daily La Nacion, out of 5000 surveyed only 10% said it was good that Maradona had got the job.You can be sure that there is much within the other 90% that loves the man dearly.

The man himself must be applauded for a resurrection from the gutter that saw , at its depths, a vigil held by thousands outside a Buenos Aires hospital in 2004.That he is in fact so human (a trait rare in a football culture awash with monosyllable, one trick ponies)makes him all the more likeable. 

But it not about how likeable he may be, or about how great he once was, it is about Argentina getting results.As much as many hearts want him to do well, the collective head is telling them something altogether different.

roy jones is a spent force