Beckham is here...

You no doubt have seen the Beckham hysteria on CNN, Yahoo, The New York Times, etc. I'm not going to bore you with a recap of it all. He'll be here in Colorado for the MLS All*Star game on Thursday. Find the most expensive hotel room in Denver and maybe you'll find Becks, Posh and the kids. Or he'll fly in on a jet morning of the game and you'll miss him. I don't think he is going to play against Glasgow Celtic this Thursday, but you never know what zany MLS has up their sleeve.

With all of the madness around Beckham it is good to remember he is human and he isn't the best footballer on earth. Not even close, really. Here is an article that spells out what he is good at and where he is deficient on the field. Think of it as a Beckham primer for the first time you tune in to MLS to catch a glimpse.

His first game with the LA Galaxy is a friendly against English giants Chelsea this Saturday, July 21st (8:30 ET on ESPN...yes real ESPN). Beckham is used to playing against them, although in the 90's when he was running roughshod over the Premier league, Chelsea didn't have the same glamor it did today, unless you're a Gianfranco Zola or Gianluca Vialli disciple.

Enjoy Beckham mania folks. Soccer hasn't been this famous in the US since Pele joined the Cosmos.

Benny Feilhaber's Golazzo!

If you don't get Fox Soccer Channel, or you didn't sit through a Spanish language broadcast, or you didn't search out a soccer bar in your town, or you were working on a Sunday and had to follow via lame ass match tracker, you missed an incredible goal. This is the kind of world class stuff the US is starting to produce with some of the younger, more skilled soccer players joining the senior national team.

I'll be frank with you, I thought Benny Feilhaber's match yesterday against Mexico was sub-par. In the semi-final I was calling for him to replace Michael Bradley. When I saw him start on Sunday I was excited...but then the game dragged on, the US went down 1-0 and Benny wasn't producing.

Well this goal erases all of that.

The young Brazilian born American is the future of our midfield.

Luis Bueno goes further to compare Benny's goal to the goal that knocked Mexico out of the 2006 World Cup.

Enjoy the clips.

New MLS Commercial on ESPN...

I think Allen invited me to blog here because of these emails I've been known to send to my friends with little bits and pieces of soccer info from around the world. Most of my posts here will be of that nature, I hope you enjoy.

This morning I was watching ESPN Sports Center while eating some breakfast. One of the commercials seemed to start off as a commercial for a baseball game, which I would normally ignore. It showed some kind of "exciting" baseball play and said, "Excitement". It then showed a ripping shot on goal in a MLS match and had a check box next to the word Excitement. The box checked. The commercial went on to have a couple other baseball scenarios and then showed how the MLS game contained that attribute.

Please note, I don't know that excitement was the actual word...I can't remember the exact details. But you get the picture. ESPN is marketing directly at baseball fans, one of the first groups to trash soccer saying it is boring. The fact that baseball fans say soccer is boring is beyond me, but I applaud ESPN for targeting that group of sports fans. In my opinion, many baseball fans are sports fans first and foremost. They like baseball because they like the stats, they like sports and they grew up with the game. It would seem that since they like sports they should be able to gain some interest in soccer.

If ESPN can help convert some baseball fans into soccer and MLS fans it will be a huge step forward for the league. Let's hope it works.

In my personal quest to convert new soccer fans, baseball fans are often easy targets. They recognize that MLB is not what it used to be and soccer is an exciting worldwide sport with so many nuances that they can explore and latch onto. Go ESPN.