Becks to Miss Galaxy Game Against Crew
Coach Bruce Arena told reporters in Columbus today that despite the injury being a 50:50 thing, the club would leave David Beckham in L.A. as a precaution with what's described as an achilles tendon issue. He's likely to only miss the one game, although it's a big one at this stage of the season - the Crew are tied for the top spot in MLS with Houston, with the Galaxy lurking just two points behind.
BTW, full back A.J. DeLaGarza, who missed the last game with a bone bruise on his knee, did make the road trip and could feature in Saturday's game.
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Sportswriter Nick Green has written the 100 Percent Soccer column since 2005 for the Daily News, Daily Breeze and other Los Angeles area newspapers. The blog of the same name began in 2007. A native of England, he began writing about soccer in the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat in the stands for one in the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer and is married to a long-suffering soccer widow. Join Nick on FaceBook and follow him on Twitter.
Of course, none of Beckham's "handlers" (read: enablers -- among whom is Mr. Leiweke) will ever admit that a globetrotting schedule for the Galaxy, Milan and England ever had anything to do with this. No, it's all Landon Donovan's fault!
/end sarcasm
Nick, didn't Beckham arrive from Milan/England this summer with an achilles issue? I seem to remember a big taped-on ice bag during early training sessions, no? Is it the same one?
Nick replies: Yeah, Arena noted today it's a long-standing issue. Here's a link to that pic you recall: http://www.insidesocal.com/soccer/2009/07/beckham-and-donovan-make-up.html.
I'm assuming it's the same one, but back in 2006 he also had issues with the right achilles tendon, too.
The real concern here:
Is J. D'Hipp the Achilles' heel of Tim Leiweke or vise versa? :-)
Studs Up, you are The Man!! ;)
Now, back to our regularly scheduled discussion.
So one of the Galaxy's two world-class players has an injured Achilles tendon and Bruce Arena is nonchalant about it? Really? Puh-leeze, Bruce, we're not that stupid.
If Anschutz, Leiweke and Garber had any testicles, they would have insisted that Beckham honor his original Galaxy contract and forget about AC Milan, at the cost of a breach-of-contract suit. But Nnoooooo! They're powerless in the face of the Beckham Blitz and they're too greedy for international publicity. So David gets what he wants and injures his Achilles tendon in the process.
If this is "commitment to the Galaxy," then I'm Pele AND Maradona AND Kaka AND Lionel Messi AND Oleg Blokhin at the same time!