How Flair Is Punished!

I’ve been listening to the various soccer podcasts and I ran across one called Around the League, where various jounalists and über-fans comment on their respective favorite teams.

For the Los Angeles Galaxy, the representative was ESPN radio host Dave Denholm. According to Mr. Denholm, the Galaxy’s woes are because of David Beckham. Okay, I don’t entirely buy that, but it is a theory that a lot of fans have: that Beckham being on the team has meant that some other important players have been cast off.

Like I said, I don’t buy it. Earlier incarnations of the team took much bigger hits when Luis Hernandez and Carlos Hermosillo were brought on board, but somehow that didn’t have the same effect. Also, the Galaxy was losing games before Beckham came on board.

But never mind all that, we’ll say that Beckham coming on forced the team to get rid of decent other players (who these guys are, I don’t know) and this has made the team into a losing franchise.

Denholm’s take: that it is unfair that other teams didn’t take on a big dollar player. Why, if all the other teams blew cash on a single star, necessitating casting off worthy but moderately expensive other players, then everyone would suck as much as the Galaxy.

Eh?