1 post tagged “sports”
This ad was on the LA Times website. Things are getting out of hand. Ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure that the people who designed this ad are completely oblivious to the tragic irony of this image, given that Becks is no longer an England player, let alone England captain. Indeed, dropping Beckham has probably been the only praiseworthy act of Steve McLaren's England reign.
I was rather sympathetic towards Beckham to begin with, because he did give his best to United (considering his lack of success at Real) and his decline and exit from the England team was fairly sad and ignominious (and not helped by being a pillar/symbol of the Erickson error era). But if this is the sort of publicity that he's going to get, then he doesn't really need any sympathy, does he?
It seems to me that the marketing of American sports is almost always centred around individuals. However, while fans can be similarly obsessed with their favourite players, the nature of football (the one the rest of the world plays) is such that it is much more difficult for one player to truly dominate or take over a game, unlike a star quarterback, running back or high-scoring basketball player.
Good luck, David. I'm not sure what exactly the Galaxy's publicity people are expecting you to do when you get there, but unless you play every game the way you did in the match against Greece before World Cup 2002, the fans are going to be disappointed.
A star quarterback touches the ball on every offensive play, so he literally holds his team's fate in his hands.
A star basketball player - Kobe, Jordan, whatever - also touches the ball on almost every play.
A star pitcher throws the vast majority of pitches in a game.
A star batsman bats in almost every inning.
Even star running backs or wide receivers are going to be the focus of the majority of their team's plays.
A star footballer can barely touch the ball for 90 minutes, then suddenly produce five seconds of genius that decides the game. But that means that for the other 89 minutes and 55 seconds, he might basically be doing nothing. Not to say that he isn't playing well, but that's just the nature of the game. Very few players are spectacular for 90 minutes, and those players tend to be the exciting dribblers like Ronaldo, Giggsy or even Maradona.
And Becks definitely isn't that kind of player.
