Beckham, 32, who was unveiled by new club LA Galaxy on Friday 13th July,
wants what Americans call soccer to be as popular in the US as the rest of the world.

"I think most of America is positive about me coming here
and about soccer in general
so I can never be worried about selling out stadiums," he said.

Beckham hopes youngsters will give the game a chance and said:
"I want to help kids who have played the sport and been brought up
on football in the US and give them experience - make them believe
there is a career for them outside of basketball, baseball and American football.

"They are all great sports but this is one of the biggest sporting nations in the world.

"Football is not one of the top three biggest sports in this country
but hopefully that can change."

If anyone can make it there, it will be him and it will be a big V to the English media.




and below, new STJ players in pre-season training
with new manager Marc Roseblade (in the middle of photo)!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...tic/6908351.stm

MLS All Stars beat Celtic 2-0, going on 8-0 yesterday.

Becks eventually managed to make his debut on the 78th minute against Chelsea.

Gerritriteupyeenglishmedia!!!!!

Saw highlights of Beckhams debut tonight. Quite a crunching tackle he took as soon as he came on.

Channel 5 have a new TV show that started tonight on Soccer USA with MLS highlights. It is running for the next 13 weeks, and is on UK screens at 7:15pm each Wednesday.

I thought the tv show last night was really good, and glad its a 13 week series until end of MLS season.

All the viewers have to pick their own MLS team to support - DC United for me, perhaps. Still researching!

Tim Lovejoy (of SKY's Soccer AM fame) hosts the show.

What is it with David Beckham?

Do you all really feel that he will give the USA soccer league more impact. Don't you all know that soccer is by far the least popular sport in the whole nation. One guy named Beckham does not change that.

Why does he play in the USA and not in Europe? In Europe there are quite a few players that are far better than him and in the USA not a single player is better.

Being here in North America(Canada). I can tell you that Beckham's arrival in the MLS is simply a question of money. Everywhere he goes, stadiums are selling out or close to selling out. I support Toronto FC(of course, being Canadian) and when the LA Galaxy were scheduled to play in Toronto, the match became an instant sellout.
In Canada, British football is becoming extremely popular. There are almost as many kids now playing soccer as what there are playing ice hockey. A few years ago, this was unheard of in Canada.

I forgot to mention in my last post that my SESL acquaintances should realize that MLS soccer isn't only played in the United States. We have a team in Toronto called Toronto FC, managed by a name that you Scots should be familiar with- Mo Johnson. I think at one time he played with the Rangers. Toronto has sold out every match this season at approx. 26,000 fans per match. I think soccer on a per average basis is more popular in Canada than the United States.

Mo Johnston did play for Rangers, but it was at Glasgow Celtic that he made his name as a prolific striker.

Scottish football was rocked back on 10 July 1989 when Glasgow Rangers signed Maurice Johnston. Rangers shocked many of its supporters when the club, under manager Graeme Souness, signed Maurice Johnston from the French club Nantes, for £1.5m.

Mo Johnston had not only played for arch-rivals Celtic, but was the first well-known and high profile Roman Catholic player to sign for Rangers at the time.

In modern times Rangers have an open signing policy, but what made this transfer all the more dramatic was that Mo Johnston had been paraded at Celtic Park the week before as having returned to sign for Celtic, only for Graeme Souness to discover a contract had not yet been signed, and Mo Johnston made world-wide headlines signing for his boyhood heroes greatest rivals, Rangers.

Thanks for the information. It was very interesting. Mo is doing a very good job at Toronto FC by the way.

Soccer USA with MLS highlights last night had a feature on Toronto FC fans.

They were bouncing up and down during the match with LA, and signing Danny Dicchio songs and "TFC" chants.

What a great atmosphere the Toronto fans generated.

David Beckham has just made his MLS debut, coming on for LA after 71 minutes vs DC.

LA lost 1-0 but were already down to 10 men by then,

Biggest cheer was when Beckham took his shirt off leaving the pitch!

The boy Beckham is finally fit and started a match for LA Galaxy at long last.

He is even back in England national side for next week.