ShareThisAs the Beckham Across America tour began its final leg Thursday night with the Los Angeles Galaxy meeting the New York Red Bulls with Himself in the lineup, it has provided a few not-so-shocking insights into the workings of human nature.
Thanks to Grant Wahl's new book "The Beckham Experiment,'' we now know for a fact that it wasn't an easy fit.
No, the most famous athlete on earth, international jet-setter, someone who had played out his entire professional career with two of the world's elite clubs, wasn't entirely thrilled to join the Galaxy of Major League Soccer, and wasn't the best of teammates. He didn't like living in a sportswriter-caliber hotel in Secaucus, N.J. when the team was on the road, and opted instead for the Waldorf Astoria. He wasn't totally committed to training, or to playing on artificial turf. He didn't thrive in far less talented company than that to which he had long been accustomed.
Beckham was restless, in large part because he suddenly had options which he didn't know existed when he opted to abandon Europe and finish up with a minor-league outfit in a land of football philistines.
His decision to move to the United States and try to build his brand there, while at the same time raising soccer's profile, was based on the assumption that his international career was all played out. He wasn't wanted at Real Madrid any more, he was done with England after the 2006 World Cup, and so there wasn't much reason to stick around, playing out the string.
But by the time he actually left for the States, Beckham had redeemed himself in the eyes of Real manager Fabio Capello, helping lead the club to a late season charge and a Spanish championship.
And then when Capello took over the England reins, suddenly Beckham was welcome to fight his way back into the side, with a chance to go to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup.
Playing in MLS certainly wasn't going to help his chances of doing that.
In L.A. he said all of the right stuff, made most of the requisite appearances, and in fact earned nearly every nickel he was being paid, both directly, in terms of revenue generation, and indirectly in terms of the league's visibility. (You can argue that the runaway success of Toronto FC, which began selling tickets after the announcement of his signing with the Galaxy, was at least in part due to Beckham, and the hefty price commanded for expansion franchises in Vancouver and Portland wouldn't have been nearly so hefty without the selling point of jam-packed BMO Field.) But he wasn't destined to be instantly transformed into a movie star, nor was his wife, and soccer was not going to immediately move to center stage in the U.S. sports scene.
Meanwhile, across the pond, the big time beckoned.
His teammates certainly noticed his ambivalence. Landon Donovan, who was the Galaxy's marquee talent -- a relative term -- before Beckham arrived, told Wahl that the superstar was never really into it.
"If someone's paying you more than anybody in the league, more than double anybody in the league, the least we expect is that you show up to every game, whether you're suspended or not. Show up and train hard. Show up and play hard. Maybe he's not a leader, maybe he's not a captain. Fair enough. But at a minimum you should bust your ass every day. That hasn't happened. And I don't think that's too much for us to expect. Especially when he's brought all this on us."
Sour grapes? Jealousy? Yep, that's at least part of it. Human nature, again.
And now comes the final, awkward, half-season parting, because MLS tried to have its cake and eat it too, unwilling to simply sell Beckham outright to AC Milan, and unwilling to hold him to the letter of his contract and prevent him from playing in Europe at all.
He is back, though only for a little while, back, though surely with precious little enthusiasm, back, though his presence in MLS now is only a reminder that it didn't quite work out the way both sides hoped--- though he also wasn't the bust that some have suggested.
Beckham came. He was noticed. His heart wasn't entirely in it. He can still play, at a level far higher than MLS, as he proved in Italy. He'll probably be in South Africa. He almost certainly won't turn up in the U.S. again unless it's on vacation.
It was a wild, fascinating ride while it lasted. And in the final tabulation, North American soccer is the better for it, despite the noses left out of joint.
(Contact Stephen Brunt at sbrunt(at)globeandmail.com)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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