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His 15 minutes of playing time were pretty uneventful. Then again, the last 30 minutes of the match—the only part I caught—were pretty darn uneventful. And boring. An example of great soccer it was not.

I must say
that seeing that picture on this site made my fricking day.
with the word filters, and general decency around these parts, I literally LOL’d
Now what is a beckham?  Is it like Canadian bacon?

I don’t mean to sound so pessimistic actually. I applaud the sentiment and optimism behind the entire thing, but nothing indicates to me that “The Beckham Era” will usher in a huge swell of support and interest for the game in this country.

I just hope this isn’t a precedent where retirement-age Euro players start moving to the states to jog around the side for a few minutes and earn millions.

Another blip on the “soccer will be huge in the US” radar. Sorry, fans. I do applaud those of you that love it, and my daughter plays, but it just ain’t gonna happen here.

Fletch: Even with the booming Latino population?

Yes, I stand by my comment even with the booming Latino population. It could still be huge amongst people that come here from other lands, but I am more likely to believe we will convert to the Metric system before soccer will be huge here.

Soccer will never be as popular as other American sports for a couple reasons:

1. The game itself isn’t and can’t be built around commercial breaks.  Every other major American sport is. 

2. The average attention span of an American is something like 6 seconds.  That’s precisely about how much non-stop action you see at once in the major four American sports. This is not the case for soccer.

3. Until even some of the best American athletes play soccer, the American team will continue to be behind the world in terms of quality.  It will be incredibly difficult for us to get increased domestic support if we’re still not respected worldwide. 
4. We won’t be a world class side until our best athletes play.  Our best athletes won’t play until that’s where the money is.  The money won’t be there for at least a couple of the above reasons.

Each of those feed into each other.  Beckham will certainly increase the popularity of soccer, but soccer is a long way towards being as big as it is elsewhere.  And I’m fine with that.  The last thing I want to see is ESPN bastardizing the game of soccer like they do everything else.  You saw that last night (hint: when Bonnie Bernstein shows up, it’s been bastardized), but I think it will die down once the novelty wears off.  I’m perfectly happy following European football from the comfort of my computer chair and my living room when the FWC, UEC, and UCL roll around.