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we have soccer to thank for 'flopping'.
tells me all i need to know regarding that so-called sport.
In an SI article about the Brits badmouthing US sports (saying Beckham is going into semi-retirement joing the MLS) the owner of the LA MLS team says:
Despite criticizing the Premier League for sloganeering and over-marketing, Lalas claimed that, when he arrives, Beckham will have a higher profile in the United States than Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan.
"The U.S. will never have dealt with an athlete who has had this kind of international impact," Lalas told the Mirror. "Tiger Woods has that international appeal but, with due respect to Woods and Michael Jordan, David Beckham is at an entirely different level."
we have soccer to thank for 'flopping'.
tells me all i need to know regarding that so-called sport.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that. I mean, yes, football is more popular than either golf, or basketball, but Beckham isn't even its most influential player. Christ, he isn't even THAT good! not compared to the ones he competes with. The only thing he's got going for him is he is English, which immediately opens up the European AND American markets more so than the rest of the Euro players. That and he's good looking and therefore marketable, as opposed to say... Ronaldinho who is light years better than Beckham ever was but doesn't have Beckhams face. Beckham is the prime example of a player who owes more of his fame to his good looks than his talent.
Having said that, football is the most popular sport in the world, so... I wouldn't say its out of the question.
so-called sport? yeah... this post tells me all I need to know about your sorry ass.
Tiger is mainly famous in the UK and USA, the same with MJ.
Beckham is famous everywhere. Euro football is an entirely different sport than we deal with here.
In the US we have so many sports to chose from...across the world they pretty much have "Football" and thats it. Imagine taking everything... PGA, all NCAA, MLB, NFL, NASCAR and everything else and roll it into the NBA and think how much more famous MJ would have been. Now take that and make him global.
Thats how famous Beckham was at his height. Also consider his fame was somewhat dampened by moving from Manchester United in the UK and going to Real Madrid, in Spain.
And by the way, Euro football is great if you give them a shot.
Beckham is the best case to show where fame and celebrity status is vastly superior to his talent and on-the-pitch influence.
He is one of the best free kick, corner kick takers and crossers of the world, but that's about it. He is decent in his work rate, his stamina and vision. But he has no dribbling, heading, pace, he rarely arrives into the opposition's box....and he is on the decline.
If the MLS want to make their league more compte ive, they should start scouting for young talents in Latin America and Africa. They have the money to lure them to the MLS.
To make a loose analogy for those who don't know anything about soccer: This is like paying a lot of money for one of the best punters/kickers of the world who is on the downside of his career and has 2, maybe 3 professional years left. And certainly not at the peak of his career.
For all those clowns who are calling him out
the good old days during the manutd treble of 99 and upto to the korea/japan worldcup, he was at his best imo, he was deadly accurate on passing etc and during that worldcup he showed he can dribble and stuff untill he bolted to realmadrid. His name, image sells. He gets more money from endorsements and selling his shirts.
his downfall in spain? media, his lack of fitness, motivation, and his wife. << i can see this happening in the future for SAS....
Manutds reply about the transfer = no player is bigger than the club
That's funny. When I was in Germany, France, Hungary, Austria, Italy, China and Japan from 95-97, you can't imagine how suprised I was to see a Bulls jacket or Jordan jersey around every corner.
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world because it is all the world has. UK has cricket. Aussies have ARF. in Afghanistan the 2nd most popular sport is Buzkashi, played on horseback with a goat head. Europe as a whole has F1, but still there is no leagues in the world that can compare to the popularity of the NFL, and the NBA is catching up. The world doesn't have college football; no March Madness; no Daytona or Indy 500's. Soccer may be the world's #1 sport, but someone in Ghana doesn't give a rat's ass about the EPL. Football is the NFL. Even in Europe, the farm league is NFL Europe.
That being said, this guy is coming to America. Americans as a whole don't care about soccer unless their kids are playing it. The MLS will fold within a couple years, as every major attempt at a soccer league has.
Americans dont like soccer as a professional game. We are all about the last second shot/drive/pass; in soccer, not a damn individual in the stadium knows how much time is left but the refs. People say its boring. we all know that in reality it isn't a boring game, but why do people say that so much? Soccer is much less boring than golf, yet Americans love golf. One of the main reasons is having enduring personalities. Arnie. Jack. Tiger. Those guys are golfers that everyone loves to love, or at the very least love to watch fail. People will tune in to see that. Soccer doesn't have that.
Another huge reason American don't identify with soccer can be summed up in 3 words: Racism, Violence and Corruption. Americans as a society loathe all 3 of them, yet all 3 are completely rampant in euro soccer leagues. Throwing bananas and making monkey calls at an African team in 2006? If that happened in America, there would be law suits and Congressional action. People dying in stadium riots? Heck if you are a visiting fan and you say too many bad words you can get thrown out in America. In the US, taking your amily to a game is sort of a middle-class America reward. I have had my kids at Skins/Cowboys, Spurs/Mavs, OSU/uo, but I would NEVER take them to a rivalry game in the UK. When the violence associated with your sport is so bad and so rampant that you have an entire word, hooliganism, created just for it, then something is wrong. And the corruption in the front office, my gosh. The way Americans hate white collar corporate crime and corruption, we would never stand for all that stuff.
A few other quick reasons it is not embraced in America - faking injuries, yellow and red cards at a refs discretion (you saw what happened when Tim got ejected on a refs bad discretion), offsides (good golly it happens on 3 out of every 4 or 5 plays), Bonus Time (what the is that??).
Soccer can be a great sport. I have been to matches in St Petersburg against Moscow and in Germany to a GFL game. Even so, there were parts I was bored at. The point here being - Americans as a whole know nothing about soccer, the EPL or David Beckham, other than the fact he's that winey over pampered sooccer dude who married one of the e Girls. That's it. He isn't going to mean anything more to America than that. He may be more global... but he isn't anywhere near popular here as Dale Earnhardt or Peyton Manning or Lebron James or Derek Jeter. Just another guy.
That's because most of the world is poor as and can barely afford to buy that role of masking tape they wad up and kick around on their dirt lot.
Well... damn.
Becks will disappear into obscurity after the move to LA. He'll prolly be popular there but only b/c of wifey. The rest of the US will ignore him. Lalas is an idiot trying to hype his irrelevant team, currently in fifth place of six teams in its division.
I actually enjoy futbol (as a casual fan) and the number of futbol-only stadia being built in the US shows that MLS is having at least some impact/success here.
They build stadiums just for Arena Football and Rodeos, too.
For Beckham to be compared with MJ or Tiger, he would have to be one of the best in football's history, and he doesn't even make the Top 100 in my opinion.
A different case would be Maradona and Pelé. Those two are by FAR more known than MJ, Tiger, Schumacher or Federer.
Lalas is a blowhard. Tiger and MJ are the biggest sports icons in the world and nobody else is even close.
pfff... thats because to Americans, the world has a population of 300 millionOutside your little world, football superstars are bigger than anything the US has produced, EVER!
Notice I said "mainly"
Having said that, MJ is definately out there with the most popular stars of our time. Although basketball is only just really catching on in South America, and Europe, MJ is pretty well known almost everywhere in the world. I'd say MJ is the biggest American sports star to ever live.pfff... thats because to Americans, the world has a population of 300 million
Ahh, Americans badmouthing soccer and claiming "their" sports are the best and most popular, I never would have guessed.
I love soccer and I go to soccer forums and they bash American sports just the same.
It all matters what you grew up watching...
Those who bash on a sport they do not understand are morons. I don't really like playing American Football, but I can understand why people might like it. Same thing goes for baseball and Hockey.
This is one of those reverse-discrimination arguements. US thinks its sports are better and doesn't like soccer. The World thinks soccer is better just because more people play it. Do you really think it is a better sport just because most people play it? Maybe most people play it because kicking a ball around has been around a little longer than throwing a ball thru a hoop 10 feet away and off the ground. Or maybe it is because any dirty poor nation in the world can do it, because it requires virtually no equipment. Or maybe it is because there is not a ton of skill involved to have to play it. That is not to say there are not extremely skilled soccer players, but if you are 10 years old, it takes much much less skill to run around kicking a ball than it does to hit a baseball someone is throwing at you at 80 mph or dribble a basketball and accurately launch it to score thru a tiny hoop.
To say US sports are better just because the Super Bowl (NFL) is the most watched single event in the history of the world is ignorant.
But to say soccer is a better game just because more people around the world play it is equally as ignorant.
Dude seriously, stop spewing ignorance. The Super Bowl the most watched single event in the history of the world?? Sorry to inform you son, but the FIFA World Cup final is the most watched single event in the history of the world! The Super Bowl's record tv audience is around 90 million if I'm not mistaken. Last World Cup final had around 250 million. That's almost 3 times as much.
and to say it requires less skill to play "soccer" than it does to play basketball, baseball or American football is ridiculously ignorant.
How can you not like hockey?
I always thought it was like soccer on ice.
It's similar in some ways, from what I gather. I don't really understand it that well. Haven't played it, and I've rarely ever watched it so.
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