It was all smiles and happiness frowns and dissatisfactory glances at the Home Depot Center Arena Stadium Complex yesterday, as David Beckham played his first LA Galaxy home game since escaping to Italy six months ago.
Playing against a rather familiar AC Milan team, the England star received some rough treatment from the 27,000 sellout crowd, many of whom had prepared harshly-worded banners.
After reading vitriolic messages such as “Go home fraud”, “Previous instances in which we professed to like you were fraudulent” and “How dare you bring international reverence and substantial revenues to a league that absolutely no one cared about”, Beckham tried to make amends with a particularly hostile Galaxy fan:
At halftime, Beckham walked toward the L.A. Riot Squad section and motioned to a fan to come closer. A man jumped down from the seats and was subdued by security before being taken away.
“One of the guys was saying things that wasn’t very nice. It was stepping over the line,” Beckham said. “I said, `You need to calm down and come shake my hand,’ and he jumped over.”
As you can see from these highlights that look like they were shot on a Nokia phone from 2003, the game finished 2-2 and Beckham was instrumental in setting up both the MLS side’s goals…
Spoiler bonus: Manchester Utd played a Malaysia XI on Saturday, in which Fit and Healthy Charismatic striker Michael Owen equalled ten per cent of his goalscoring output of last season. Check out highlights after the jump…
Americans show their (lack of) appreciation for want-away star
New York Red Bulls 1/ LA Galaxy 3
When David Beckham first played at New York’s Giants Stadium in 2007, an impressive 66,237 soccerball lovers turned up to see what the fuss was all about. Two years on, and just 23,238 turned up at the huge arena to welcome the England star on his return to the MLS.
As expected, large portions of the dwindled home crowd booed the returning star (well, either that or they were saying “BOOOOECKHAM!” in some sort of bizarre New Jersey accent), and it is quite audible in the video above during his 70th minute substitution.
Aside from a couple of good long range goals and some piss poor defending MLS-style defending, our favourite part of this video is the commentator’s reaction to Landon Donovan’s strike - skip to [1.53] to hear a completely non ironic “EEAAAYYEEEEEESSSS!”
The Ginger Mourinho fights back against the Bolton boo-boys
Gary Megson has questioned the intelligence of the fans who abused him when Bolton blew a 2-0 lead at Blackburn yesterday and labelled them “pathetic”.
The Spoilerdefended Megson’s record when he was criticised earlier this season but supporters have again turned on their “Ginger Mourinho” after a run of one league win in eight. Megson, who won manager of the month just two months ago, issued this defence:
“Will I ever win them (the boo-boys) over? No, no chance. I took this club further than it’s ever been in Europe, I kept them up after having five points from 10 games, I’ve taken the wage bill down. I haven’t spent a lot of money in doing that. I think it works out at £2.5m. Others have spent around £90m. If your face doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit. You have to accept that.”
The last time serious protests were held against Megson was last April after they dropped back into the bottom three but the boo-boys were left with egg on their faces when a five match unbeaten run carried them to safety.
Is the Bolton boss unfairly targeted despite doing a good job because he lives in Sam Allardyce’s shadow or would the Trotters be doing better with someone else at the helm? Let us know what you think with a vote and comment below:
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