David Beckham is here in case you missed it!!!

I am already irritated by the "saviour" of American Soccer that we are hearing about. The ignorance or deliberate bias of the main stream sports media in the States and back in England is staggering. Some facts:

1. US Soccer does not need saving. It is growing at a slow and steady rate. This may help it make a slightly quicker move forward due to the media presence. My concern however is that he will not score a lot of goals and he will not beat 5 men on the dribble. It is the intangibles that he could bring if he plays well that will be missed or misunderstood.
2. MLS is a good league. Of course it is not the Premier League, La Liga, Seria A etc... but, no other leagues are.
   
3. Is MLS slower than other leagues, especially Europe. Yes. However, put any Premier League team in Houston in the summer or Denver etc... they would soon struggle.

I think the negative media is due to two causes. The first in the States is that there is a threat from the World's most popular sport on the traditional American Sports. I don't think they have anything to worry about. Those sports all have their own niches and I myself am a massive NFL fan. Soccer is not an American sport so why support it? Neither is Golf, Tennis, Ice Hockey etc... For most of the World for the World's largest and most powerful country to be considered a great sporting Nation they have to be successful at soccer. This is the fear the rest of the World has, therefore, the constant picking on the sport over here. They are afraid that America will embrace the sport and turn the talent and potential into success. I think that really scares the traditional powers.

Time will tell how this is going to play out, and it's going to very interesting. At the end of the day I want MLS to be a success, but, hate LA so want them to fail. It could be an interesting conundrum.

-Richard