The great experiment in question involved adding one part soccer superstar, David Beckham, to a diluted North American market, hoping that a massive positive chemical reaction might take place.
Well, we're still waiting, even if there have been a series of minor explosions along the way. All eyes are back on Beckham as he returns, finally, to the Los Angeles Galaxy roster July 16 for a game against the New York Red Bulls. He's back from an extended stay in Europe, where he fled in search of better competition.
Certainly, Major League Soccer wants him back. He sells tickets and merchandise and gives the league a cachet it might otherwise lack. But he also has left even his teammates wondering if Beckham still believes in the mission.
L.A. striker Landon Donovan is highly critical of Beckham in this long-awaited book by Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl. Donovan says Beckham is guilty of a lack of commitment and suggests he deserves to be benched if his attitude has not changed.
Wahl writes of the Galaxy's trip to Toronto in August 2007 as being the first time his teammates experienced the VIP treatment accorded Beckham wherever he goes. At the Ultra Supper Club, "you would have thought you'd stepped into a time warp back to 1977, to the days when the New York Cosmos of Pele and Giorgio Chinaglia partied with Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger and the gang at Studio 54 in Manhattan. For the Galaxy players, that night in the Supper Club – the hottest nightclub in downtown Toronto – was the first time they felt like a SuperClub."
Those were the days.
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