Where Gretzky led...other athletes will follow -- Beckham signs with LA club

[Flubber]

Originally posted by LordShiva
I read this on Eurosport. Is Beckham really ready to admit his career is over?

I figure he is really ready to cash cheques equallying 50 million per annum

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by LordShiva
I read this on Eurosport. Is Beckham really ready to admit his career is over?

He seems to prefer the drama and fame to actually achieving anything on the pitch. Which is why he joined Real Madrid when he did, it would put him among the greats to play there in the past. Whether he won anything seemed irrelevant.

He (or his agent) just found the brightest spotlight again.

[Drake Tungsten]

It's not like Beckham's the only who wants to get the **** out of Britain...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by alva
It didn't do what it was intented though, did it. It didn't become a serious contender (which was my point).

When i was a kid in NYC, soccer was an obscure sport played by immigrants on their days off from working in garment factories. It was like a tad more popular than bocci. Maybe. By now its like THE team sport for little kids, largely displacing little league baseball. That is a phenomenal shift - imagine if half the 8 year olds in your town were in a curling league (if youre not Canadian or Scottish, that is) Thats how big the transformation has been.

Now of course the problem is how does something phenomenally successful, but identified as kiddy, breakout of that niche - the Nintendo problem, so to speak, or the Harry Potter problem. Maybe Beckham can do it, maybe not. But I think it would be a mistake to underestimate the growth in soccer that took place here during the Pele years.

[Odin]

The new Pele:

Soccer:

[Jaguar]

I think I speak for most Americans when I say "who the hell is he, and why are we supposed to care?"

[Drake Tungsten]

He's Posh Spice's husband and we should care because now, with Posh in LA, it will be easier to make Spice World 2. Her husband's "sporting" career has held her and the sequel back up until now...

[Jaguar]

Oh, he's a washed up pop star's husband? So he's kind of like K-Fed, except he plays a "sport."

[Drake Tungsten]

K-Fed is a professional wrestler now, so they're pretty much exactly alike.

[Asher]

Beckham, like all gay men, died when he turned 25.

[Drake Tungsten]

Agreed. He's just a shell of a man now really, doomed to spend the rest of his days hanging with TomKat and his talentless beard...

[Kontiki]

Let's not get crazy now. Katie Holmes has (or had, not sure how motherhood will affect them) two great talents.

[Drake Tungsten]

Posh Spice is the "talentless beard" I was referring to. I should have made that more clear given the abundance of closeted gay men in that scenario...

[Kontiki]

My bad. But you're right, you did set the stage for the confusion.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Jaguar
I think I speak for most Americans when I say "who the hell is he, and why are we supposed to care?"

He's the guy making more money in one minute than the rest of us will make in our whole dreary, hopeless, wretched lifetimes.