The Equalizer: Los Angeles Galaxy vs. AC Milan tiff over David Beckham helps legitimize U.S. soccer

1/28/09
bruce arena
By Max J. Dickstein

The Equalizer: Los Angeles Galaxy vs. AC Milan tiff over David Beckham helps legitimize U.S. soccer

Photo credit: Game Face

Photo by Getty

By Andrew Keh

Special to amNewYork

Los Angeles Galaxy coach Bruce Arena fired a stern warning this week to AC Milan after several members of the club’s top brass publicly expressed their desire to acquire Galaxy captain David Beckham, currently on loan with the Italian side until March 8, on a permanent basis.

In doing so, Arena may have unknowingly advanced Major League Soccer another baby-step toward global legitimacy.

Arena, the former Red Bulls coach, conveyed some amount of exasperation on Monday when he said, “I’m not sure if it’s appropriate for club officials at the biggest clubs in the world to be making comments without having contact with us.”

Milan’s coach Carlo Ancelotti hit back the next day with some passive-aggressive comments of his own, saying, “Milan is a serious club, a very serious club,” before lathering Beckham, an Englishman, with unabashed adoration.

International rhubarbs between club coaches have a long and glorious history on the other side of the Atlantic. Verbal slighting of this kind is an art, and Europeans, as with many other arts, are its original masters.Consider Manchester United coach Alex Ferguson, who, when faced with yet another inquiry last month about the possible sale of star winger Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid, declared, “Would I get into a contract with that mob? Absolutely no chance. I wouldn’t sell them a virus.”

Such tiffs are a weekly banality in Europe, but they have generally not found their way to the United States.

Clearly, the press has made more of Arena’s exchange than necessary. By the lofty standards of such garrulous masters as Inter Milan’s Jose Mourinho, the run-in was downright polite.

But its occurrence, in all seriousness, is a real byproduct of American soccer’s recent maturation. American players, now more than ever, are desirable commodities for European clubs.

Some prospects, such as Wake Forest’s Marcus Tracy, who eschewed the M.L.S draft to sign with a Danish club, are jumping straight to Europe. Others, such as Chivas USA’s Sacha Kljestan, who scored a hat-trick for the U.S. this weekend against Sweden, are transfer targets for major clubs.

Arena himself is in the unenviable position of having his two top players, Beckham and Landon Donovan, away on loan, with near-constant speculation that one or both will not return.

The business of moving players can get ugly; that American coaches would one day have to get down and dirty and join in the transfer window tug-of-wars of international soccer was a forgone conclusion.

But for discerning soccer fans in America — who, by nature, I think, crave acceptance — Arena’s little spat should mark a noteworthy moment in the country’s continued emergence.

Andrew Keh is amNewYork’s soccer columnist.
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The Equalizer: Los Angeles Galaxy vs. AC Milan tiff over David Beckham helps legitimize U.S. soccer

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