ShareThisOf course it ought to be a mere footnote in a springtime packed with real soccer news.
Great races at the top of the table in England, Italy and Spain, Jose Mourinho perhaps bound for glory in both Serie A and the Champions League, Manchester United's dogged perseverance under Sir Alex Ferguson, the crisis at Liverpool, and a World Cup now just beyond the horizon, which figures to be wild and unpredictable on -- and especially off -- the pitch.
David Beckham snapping his Achilles tendon just doesn't compare -- except that he is the sport's purest expression of a star.
That is, his fame transcends even a game that reaches every corner of the planet, his image is like the swoosh or the golden arches. He is a brand, and you can count on one hand (Jordan, Tiger, Ali) the athletes who have reached that plane. So the prospect that Beckham's playing days are done, at least at the game's highest level, is certainly news that's fit to print.
Beckham says he'll be back in six months following surgery in Finland, but that injury a couple of months short of age 35, at a time when his lack of foot speed is already an issue, would seem to point toward, at best, a modest farewell tour.
The whole idea of his loan to AC Milan from the Los Angeles Galaxy was to secure a spot in South Africa -- though even before he was hurt, there were questions as to how or whether manager Fabio Capello would use him for England.
Now it's hard to see him back in Italy, which means either a final bow in Major League Soccer -- if the league isn't shut down by a player's strike -- or a turn with a second-tier side back in England.
And just as mobs of Japanese teenaged girls are weeping at the prospect that Becks may be done, a whole host of skeptics are enjoying the opportunity to point out, once again, that he has been more hype than reality all along, that bottom line, Beckham was a handsome guy with a pop-star wife who sold all kinds of products but was never really that good.
Truth is, it's the Japanese teens who have it right -- because, however much we might tire of their acts, we miss the shining stars when they're gone and, because, taken on his own terms, Beckham was in fact a significant talent.
Not a Maradona talent or a Pele talent (or even a Paul Gascoigne talent, one could argue) and no doubt it bugs the soccer purist that there were better, more complete players during Beckham's time who received a tiny fraction of the attention he commanded. (Just like there are a whole lot of actors more talented than fill-in-the-blank-here with the name of a movie star who doesn't really have the thespian chops).
Beckham wasn't a fiery leader like Roy Keane or Eric Cantona. He couldn't control the game from the midfield, like Zinedine Zidane. What he did was cross the ball as well as anyone has, deliver marvelous free kicks, and play a complementary but essential role on some great teams.
He couldn't do much to get England past the hump in the World Cup, despite three cracks at it -- but neither has anyone else since 1966. And he couldn't single-handedly make soccer a mainstream sensation in the United States.
But one day soon, it's going to be interesting to look back on his arrival in Los Angeles to look at the enormous publicity he generated, the MLS expansion and sport-specific-stadium construction boom that began immediately thereafter, and the exponential growth of the overall audience for the sport in North America.
MLS may not ever be more than what it already is -- an opportunity for fans on this continent to support a local side and experience the game live while understanding that the best players are elsewhere -- but how many more now have a passion for the EPL, for the UEFA tournaments and the World Cup?
And conveniently lost in the blanket dismissal of Beckham's career were his final months with Real Madrid. Initially banished by Capello -- which led to his signing with L.A. -- he was summoned back with the Galacticos stumbling, and though playing through injuries, was one of the keys to their late championship run. That's got to count for something.
Sure, Beckham's a glamour boy, but in person, he's disarmingly modest and unmistakably working class. If he looked like a sportswriter, he would have been admired for his play, given credit for a very fine career, perhaps married differently -- and of course made a whole lot less money. But don't hate him just because he's beautiful.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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