David Robert Joseph Beckham: A tribute

Football over Fashion

We know all the knocks against David Beckham by heart. The underwear ads. The haircuts. The fact that all too often he’s a one-trick pony on the pitch. But we here at FootyFactory believe it’s time to give Becks his just deserts. Year after year his football career has been thrown in doubt. Yet each time he’s battled back and proved the naysayers wrong.

It all began with that red card against Argentina during World Cup ’98. A few seasons later came that metatarsal injury. Then there was that moment when Fabio Capello said he’d never again play for Real Madrid. Or that time when Steve McClaren dropped him from the England squad a few caps short of 100.

Beckham's England pride

Now Becks is at it again. After a self-imposed exile to the Siberia of football that is the M.L.S., Becks is on loan with AC Milan, hoping to secure a permanent move there. And despite some of the rhetoric coming from the L.A. Galaxy…and despite Posh’s movie career hanging in the balance…it looks like this transfer is going to happen.

The bottom line is, you can never count David Beckham out. He’s one of the most resilient and dedicated players in the sport. For him, the football clearly comes first and the celebrity and endorsements come second.

Of course, if Beckham succeeds in orchestrating his exit from the Galaxy after barely two seasons, some will declare his mission to raise the game of football in America as an utter failure. But once again, those people might be a little too quick to judge. There’s a good chance that Beckham’s legacy in M.L.S. will be that he has blazed a trail for other established ‘galacticos’ to try their luck in the United States. Thierry Henry lining up for Miami? Andrei Shevchenko kicking it around with Chicago? Michael Owen back in his stride in Houston? If anything like that happens in the next couple of years, we can only conclude that the Beckham in America experiment was a resounding success.