Gotta love a Tuesday morning that feels like a Monday...
Back to what I do best; writing about soccer (rather than trying to talk about it; boy my mouth got dry). For those of you that checked out the podcast, thank you very much. It was a lot more work than I anticipated, mostly because I was a bit of a perfectionist with it. Now that the formatting work is done (my attempt at an intro, the music, etc.) it should go much smoother next time. I'd like to make it fairly consistent week-to-week, so I'll be on the look out for segment ideas if any of you would like to suggest any.
Greg Lalas at SI.com has written a piece on Mexico's struggles that echoes the sentiments I attempted to get across in this piece. There's nothing in Greg's piece that I didn't say, although I'm kicking myself for not making the Australia/Oceania parallel that he does. Like Greg, I think Mexico will be fine (eventually). I even hope they're rolling through everyone else come August, when the USMNT heads to Azteca; if we're going to get our first even win in Mexico City, then I want it to be over an on-form Mexico team so there can be no argument about which nation sits atop the CONCACAF mountain.
Milan's chief executive says that Friday might be the day that the Beckham mess is settled. I'm not sure why that would be unless the Galaxy and MLS agreed to give Milan an "wink-wink" deadline extension. I'll just go ahead and say it again because it bears repeating: no one knows anything (even the BBC, and possibly even Milan's CEO). If you listened to my podcast, you know that I'm rooting for the deal to fall through just for the selfish reason that I think the return-of-Golden Balls press conference will be fantastic theater.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that it's probably in MLS's best interest to drag this out as long as possible. The Beckham mess draws attention to the league, and although no one is talking about the on-the-pitch product at the moment, the more focus drawn to MLS during the run-up to the season, the better. It seems an obvious observation, but the imposition of the arbitrary deadline by Garber indicates that maybe the league hasn't thought about the situation in those terms. I'll give Garber credit for defending the league's and the Galaxy's "honor" against the seemingly derogatory way Milan has approached the negotiations; maybe he truly did have his heart in the right place. It just seems like it would be awfully difficult to throw away all of the free publicity the saga is bringing.
By the way: Milan offered $3 million for Beckham? Really? As I said when it was reported that Milan failed to come back with a second bid before the February 13th deadline; either Milan doesn't value Beckham (as a player at least) as much as they are leading on, or they have zero respect for MLS. Perhaps they viewed the financial restrictions that MLS clubs operate under as an indication that the league would be more likley to sell Beckham at a discount. Even if that was just the initial offer and they intended to come up a bit, that seems an awfully low number to start.
Also filed under the heading of "no one knows anything" comes a report that deal is in place. Right.
Steven Goff also has a post on his blog about the potential All-Star game opponent, and I can't say that I'm enthralled. Don't get me wrong, Inter Milan would be a great opponent, and I'm sure Rio Tinto will be a fantastic venue for that match. I'm just not enthusiastic about the All-Star Game as a concept. It smacks of minor-league if you ask me, and I'm sure to opine about it here in the near future.
