Beckham. David Beckham. The British football sensation arrived in the United States earlier this month to start the next phase of his remarkable soccer career. His arrival is also supposed to help the cause of soccer in the USA. I highly doubt that the current media blitz will make a teenage boy in Kansas suddenly fall in love with soccer and thereby create an earthquake in the sporting world. In fact, quite honestly, this news helped me answer the age old question of “where do soccer stars go to die?†I guess they come to the US.
A lot of Americans fail to see how big Beckham is in the rest of the world. According to Wikipedia “[David Beckham] was Google’s most searched of all sports topics in both 2003 and 2004†and “in much of the world his name is “as instantly recognizable as that of multinational companies like Coca-Cola and IBM.”†That is huge in my book. So, the most recognizable sports figure on the world stage will now play for the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer in the US.
Beckham isn’t the first soccer star to come here. I’m sure he will not be the last either. Pele came in the 1970’s to play for the New York Cosmos in the now defunct North American Soccer League (NASL).
If you think Beckham is big today. Pele was bigger back in the day and continues to be a big name in much of the world. When I was growing up in Nepal anybody that was good at anything was nicknamed Pele. As in, “man that guys’ a pele at math?†I personally consider him to be the greatest athlete of all time in any sport. What he could do with that soccer ball no one has ever done and I think we’ll go through a few hundred years before we ever see the likes of him again. Even Pele couldn’t help the cause of soccer in the United States as the NASL folded in 1984.
America is the wilderness when it comes to soccer. No serious soccer player in his prime comes to play for the MLS. Anytime a major soccer player signs for an American league you know they’re done. So, Beckham coming to the US is truly a watershed moment in his career. It signals to the world that he’s done as a serious soccer player. I wish him all the best as he lives in L.A. I wouldn’t be surprised if we started seeing more of him in the entertainment industry. Why not? Bend it Like Beckham was a super hit back in 2002 and he didn’t even make an appearance.
