Beckham Ditches Real, Joins LA Galaxy

So Beckham has formally announced (press conference, offical statement, the works) that he's leaving Real Madrid at the end of the season, and jetting off to LA to join the Galaxy in the MLS. I'm not sure if he's ever seen a game over there, but it's a good place to go towards the end of your career - he'll pretty much clean up. The standard isn't as good by a decent stretch (most of the good players you see in the World Cup team somehow end up playing in Europe), and the pace of the game is nice and easy. Given you're not allowed to put any hard tackles in without the whistle going, he's probably going to get a decent number of free kicks around the box as well, so all good for him.

I wonder if this will do anything for the MLS out here - I mean, he's probably the worlds best known footballer, and he's been over here a few times doing some self promotion, but footy is very much a 3rd division sport over here - superceded by pretty much everything, and not only at professional level - college as well. Still, only time will time - at least he went to LA, who do actually have a decent number of fans turn up for games (something to do with all the non-natives who live there is my guess). Let's see if ESPN decides they want to start showing a couple of games...