Here's a book I zipped through as another guilty pleasure, basically what amounts to a book-length tabloid for the soccer-obsessed male American fan living in LA (there are far, far fewer of us than you can ever imagine). Well-written and an easy read, Grant Wahl tells the inside story of 18 months in the history of a worse-than-mediocre US professional soccer...
more Here's a book I zipped through as another guilty pleasure, basically what amounts to a book-length tabloid for the soccer-obsessed male American fan living in LA (there are far, far fewer of us than you can ever imagine). Well-written and an easy read, Grant Wahl tells the inside story of 18 months in the history of a worse-than-mediocre US professional soccer team playing the world's favorite game in a country that just doesn't know or care about the sport. At all. Enter David Beckham, the world's richest and most famous team athlete and veteran of European superclubs Manchester United and Real Madrid, complete with an army of spin-meisters and hangers-on, mix in a dreamy team owner who has visions of glory, and a ragged band of mostly minimum-wage soccer players and a short succession of befuddled coaches, and out comes a story of sports and celebrity under LA's bright lights that's not half-bad. The Los Angeles Galaxy, though failing miserably to capitalize on its signing of an aging but still-skillful world-class midfielder in Beckham, nonetheless manage to turn his ego-driven but poorly-thought-out American invasion into something of a financial and marketing bonanza for the club.
What makes my reading of this book a bit sweet and very timely, is that even as I write these words, the Los Angeles Galaxy is wrapping up one of its most successful regular seasons in the short 14-year history of American Major League Soccer (MLS), earning the second-highest seed in the eight-team 2009 playoffs and gaining respect even from the die-hards. The MLS Cup is still some distance away but certainly within reach. David Beckham was still a very substantial part of the 2009 stretch run, the second half of the 30-game season. But solid coaching by newly-hired veteran coach Bruce Arena, as well as fundamentally sound, un-distracted, defensive-oriented play by the rank-and-file players and by star striker Landon Donovan built the foundation for the successful season. It seems that when the spotlight faded away and the media hype moved on, the beautiful skill and gritty hustle that define both Beckham's original blue-collar north-London roots and the American soccer scene itself, finally managed to prevail over the Hollywood glitz. Despite the book's sometimes negative tone and cynical take on celebrity culture, I can't help but think that somehow the author, whose story ends in July 2009 just as the newly-minted Galaxy was finally starting to hit its winning stride, wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
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