David Beckham is injured for most of the rest of the Major League Soccer season, and the critics are once again out in full force against the former England captain’s decision to come to America. Among them is his former coach, Sir Alex Ferguson, who believes that Beckham’s pilgrimage to the States will be fruitless — and possibly detrimental to his England career. “I don’t know what kind of impact he can make. David Beckham himself can’t change the whole country,” the Manchester United manager said.
“The size of the country makes it difficult,” Ferguson added. “In European football, and especially in British football, you can travel easily. If you are Boston and need to go to Los Angeles it’s a six-hour flight.” Ferguson also believes that the distance between teams affects the impact soccer can have on American society, and that young talent seeks to move abroad as a result of the sport’s lower profile.
Meanwhile, Beckham, amid more suggestions that MLS is a sub-standard, “Mickey Mouse” league, blasted its critics, saying, “the standard is nowhere near as low as people have been saying it is.” He added: “I don’t know whether it’s ignorance or snobbery…but [British critics] should be sitting here now, watching us beat a team that’s won the Mexican league two years running…you have to be incredibly fit and physically strong to play here: America’s a country, after all, that produces some of the best athletes in the world.”