| Not Your Average Day of Football |
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| Eduard Smit | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 02 August 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The store was, as expected, packed. At least there wasn’t a mile-long line like there was at the Becks presentation a week earlier. After half an hour of searching we came away with one of the new scarves. One lousy scarf. No Becks home jersey for the missus, no plain away jersey for myself. Clearly, the Galaxy store was not prepared for the demand. At this point in time Galaxy officials were gleefully announcing that they had sold over 250,000 Beckham jerseys. At $80 a pop, that is quite a chunk of change for an MLS club. Was this Beckham magic already working?  Ironically, a few of the Riot Squad were wearing Chelsea blue jerseys. It certainly made me feel much better about wearing Gunner red. How does one get away with wearing the opponent’s colors while sitting at the home side’s supporter’s section? Only in America, I thought. The historical nature of U.S. football as the immigrant’s sport, the short history of professional football and the diversity of the population tends to lead people to identity crises at the stadium. Myself included. Hanging out in this spot did have its unintended benefits. A few Britishers came up to me to acknowledge the Arsenal shirt I wore. I imagine there must have been hundreds of British fans that night that were not there for the visiting team. One, in particular, told me that he was a Manchester United supporter. He had come all the way from North Dakota just for this match. “Not much football over there in North Dakota,” I quipped, while visions of the film Fargo and those bone-chilling temperatures danced in my head. “No, that’s why I’m here,” he replied. Some things you just don’t watch on television. Sometimes, especially in football, you have to be there. In 1999 Iran came to visit and play the United States in a rematch of their World Cup ’98 meeting in France. The Rose Bowl in Pasadena was packed. Over 80,000, predominantly Iranian fans, were in attendance. A large contingent came from London to watch their beloved Team Melli. You didn’t have to ask why they were there that day. We talked some more about the old days of Arsenal and Man U and how he had been to Highbury, the Arsenal home for nearly a century. I was green with envy. My dream was to watch the Gunners at that hallowed ground. Now, I imagine, it’s just a pile of rubble. He said that I have to watch a match at the Emirates some day. Beautiful, he said. That was nice to hear from a follower of a team with the largest club stadium in England. Finally, it was time for the match. Several days before, we already knew that the likelihood of Becks playing any meaningful minutes was pretty slim. That didn’t deter the sellout crowd, many of whom were at the Becks presentation. There were a reported 5,000 in attendance for that bit of glitz and glamour. A remarkable number since, aside from the media, only season ticket holders and VIP’s were invited.  So, on to the game. There wasn’t much in terms of expectations. The Galaxy had just received a 0-3 beating at the hands of Tigres of Mexico a few days earlier. That pitiful performance led some British reporters to dub the Galaxy a “pub team.” Much to the delight of the Galaxy faithful, and I hope the embarrassment of those reporters, the team had put aside that debacle and fought with pride. They managed to push Chelsea and nearly got the first goal on a header by Kyle Martino. With the vastly superior personnel at their service, Chelsea naturally dominated possession. Still, Petr Cech had to make a spectacular save on an Abel Xavier header in the first half. Cech had to be at his best again to stop a Cobi Jones strike. Brave defending by Xavier and the rest of the team kept the Blues at bay until captain John Terry blasted home the only goal of the match in the 70th minute. The Galaxy continued to play their game and came close to an equalizer when Landon Donovan failed to put away an open header. As entertaining as the match was, much of the attention was still focused on the former Merengue. Soon after Terry’s goal, a buzz came over the stadium. Becks was putting his boots on! If there was any doubt among the short-sighted, the big stadium screen showed a close-up of his feet. Yes, he’s going to play! A spontaneous chant of “Beckham, Beckham!” rang through the stadium. Our perennial seatmates, whom we have known since the inaugural year of MLS, shared a laugh with us. This was sheer lunacy. The man was just putting his shoes on, for Pete’s sake! I imagine not a few kids that day asked their parents to get them “those soccer shoes David Beckham was wearing.” While Becks did his warm-up and disappearing act into the tunnel, only to emerge spectacularly a few minutes later, I continued my faithful rendition of the anti-Chelsea fan. From where I sat there wasn’t much I could shout out, but what I could, I did incessantly. For every bad pass made, every wayward strike and every non-call I had a derisive boo. It was especially fun calling on Didier Drogba to “dive, dive!” when he came into the box. When he tried his patented hand job on an escapada I was there to chant “there goes Chelsea…always cheating!” I just wanted the visitors to feel at home. At one point close to the end, a Blues fan behind us, who had probably expected a thorough shellacking of the Galaxy, lost it and threw a wad of paper at me. Aw, did I hurt his feelings? A quick turnaround to identify the culprit, along with a loud questioning comment about his manhood elicited a few chuckles, but not the identity of the offender. No matter. I’ve had much worse. At a Mexico-USA match in the 90’s I had a bag of urine flung at me and my buddy. It would take a lot more than a wad of paper to shut this fan up. Finally, Becks returns from the tunnel, coming in for Alan Gordon. The rest is twelve, or is it fifteen, much anticipated and over-reported minutes of Beckham football. Beckham, the consummate entertainer, would not disappoint the multitude of fans. No one who cares about the football more than the one man would have held it against him if he had decided to do the sensible thing and rest his ankle, but he was not going to disappoint the wider audience. On the television news that night, a mother who had driven herself and her little kids over four hours to get to the stadium was asked if a few minutes of David Beckham was worth the trip. Without hesitation and with a big smile she answered yes, it was all worth it. The reporter could have asked her kids what they thought about the whole thing. “Did you like those Beckham shoes?” Email the author
Eduard S
said:
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LOS ANGELES, California - In my last column I promised no more David Beckham puff. However, I would be remiss if I did not relate to you my experience at attending his unofficial debut with the L.A. Galaxy as they took on Chelsea at the Home Depot Center in the invitational World Series of Football. 
| RON, hope you caught some of last Saturday's classic at the Red Bulls. Becks' first 90 minutes in months. James, it could not have been scripted better. Jonas, MLS has some silly rules about cameras. I could still remind you about your suggestion come Xmas time. Thanks for your comments! |
Jonas Cruz
said:
| Hey...I think you can now justify a DSLR with a 300mm telephoto! I recommend a Nikon! =) |
James Wilson
said:
| ... and he bends it in!!! Eduard I'm sure you went crazy when Becks made that free kick. |
RON
said:
| Can't wait to see a fully recovered Becks back in the pitch.. |
Eduard S
said:
| Alex, the misis learned pretty early on not to come along for a USA-Mexico match. Jenna, I'm honored to have a film star visit. Love your work. ;-) Thank you, both. |
Jenna Jameson
said:
| Good article. |
Alex Puno
said:
| Hey Eduard. Enjoyed your article and nice personal touch. Good thing the misis wasn?t with you at the USA-Mexico game?or was she? Didn?t realize the lengths and suffering fans go through for their team. Maybe Posh will agree to a personal interview. |
Eduard S
said:
| Ting, lately I've done a lot of suffering for the Galaxy. It's only right that you join me. Antonio, that's just my skill in ESP stuff. That really was me in your head. Ruud, you mentioned Arsenal in the same line with Man U?! You're lucky we're related, bro. :-) We're all proud of SEA's representatives at the Asian Cup. The Phils. will rise again. No doubt about it! Peter, fortunately, the logistics of preparing that other kind of bomb are daunting. Although, the food at the L.A. Coliseum can make it a lot easier. I was proud to share that moment with you. How we suffer for football! Thank you all for your responses. |
Peter Young
said:
| Great reporting, Eduard. But did you have to bring up that urine bomb that was thrown at us at that U.S.A. Mexico match? I was grateful it wasn't a shit bomb. |
A. Rudolf Smit
said:
| You are a good reporter bro but would be better if your reporting is for a television network or radio live. Enjoyed the write-up. Although for us here in Indonesia all the brouhaha on Beckham in the States is too much. Commercialism at its best! Beckham has a lot of fans here too just like in any other country, not for his looks but for his banana shots and accurate passing which begin to fade. LA Galaxy would be a good last stop for Beckham before retiring. He needs more money for his school, I guess. But his Galaxy stint may put an end to his marriage to Posh Spice. Look out for this latest gossip though. Being an Arsenal fan, good for you. I am a sucker for the red color - MU, Liverpool, Arsenal. Of course I like blue too but not the one worn by Didier Drogba. Anyway, Arsenal will be a force to reckon the coming season. By the way, what happens with Phil. soccer? Rise up man. Get back the glory of the past. Indonesia is trying hard, so should my brothers in the Phils. |
Antonio Programmer
said:
| Hey Eddie, That's a fine pix you got there. I enjoyed the pix very much. Oh and the article, too. Do you know something funny with me? Normally I'd "hear" a voice resembling mine when I read online article. However, this time that voice sounds unmistakenly like yours, with accent, manner and everything. It's very weird that I was looking at the words but actually seeing/hearing you "speaking" the words to me. LOL. Hey I'll sure become alot more active in football once WC happens. A. |
Ting Delfino
said:
| .. Eduard, I might as well suffer through a Galaxy home game with you so that I can test out my new lens, right? Would be better than that compact digital camera that you have... ;-) |
