‘Sports | DC United’ Posts⁽²⁾

oh, my … where to begin.

you’d think in washington, d.c. the hotest ticket in town would be some kind of political event, or maybe that tiger woods golf tourney happening out in bethesda next weekend.

but with approval ratings in the toilet (congress is at 19%, the president at 29%) and tiger on his back with a bum knee … the hottest ticket in the district this summer (hands down) is the visit of super-fantastic-megariffic-star david “bend it like” beckham to our small corner of the footballing world.

his trip to d.c. last year was a circus … and one which the lady sparkler and i opted to watch on the telly instead of braving the soccer-mom driven mania. this year was sure to be no different and — through a couple of tickets t.l.s. scored from work — we got to see it up close and personal.

i’m not exactly a stranger to the beguiling charm of the english flavour of football (or “footy” as the lady sparkler has taken to calling it…) but the national obsession with the chiseled greatness that is mr. beckham has me more than a little puzzled.

sure, i can understand 12 year-old girls screaming … and MAYBE we can extend that to their 40 year-old moms. but, the place was packed with 25-35 year old men with mint-edition beckham branded l.a. galaxy unis … shouting out adulation, and snapping pics. and remember, this is d.c. — it’s not exactly a home game for a team from los angeles.

i’m a 25-35 year old male and, while i am not so ego-tastic to speak for a whole decade of humans, i must say that i remember far more lows in “the david’s” career (thrown out of 1998 World Cup, lackluster showing in 2002 and 2006 Cups, flipping off fans at Euro 2000, benchings by two of the greatest coaches of this age) than i remember his highs.

so while i respect david for his 100+ appearances for the national team, and for his collection of early club championships — that’s enough for me to hope he does well in the States, but not enough to drop $70 on an spanking new beckham jersey and scream at him like a little girl.

speaking of which, the funniest moment of the day was shortly after we arrived with some of the lady sparkler’s co-workers … we were poking fun of the whole scene, when someone from two rows back, right behind out heads, shouted “DAVID, I LOVE YOU!”

unfortunately, we just *lost* it.

oh, right. the game. d.c. crushed them. beckham looked miserable (as a proper brit should, playing footy .. during the summer .. in 98-degree weather .. in an american swamp).

the championship match of major league soccer returned to D.C.’s RFK Stadium again this year. unfortunately, after having the best record during the regular season, D.C. United flamed out in the first round of the playoffs and blew the chance to play for the cup on their home turf.

instead, we watched the lady sparkler’s hometown team (the houston dynamo) hand the new england revolution (employer of the twit mentioned above) their fourth cup defeat in the last six years. you can guess our allegiances (have i mentioned he’s a twit?) and i can safely say that we were in a small, small minority of people cheering for houston as they sent the revolution to the bad side of the record books.

now, not everybody cares about fútbol/soccer, but focus for a moment on the futility factor here: 4 championship appearances, no wins. only two professional teams share this dubious honor (the buffalo bills and the minnesota vikings, both of the NFL, both 0-4 in the superbowl). hockey has only one team that comes close (st. louis blues, 0-3) and basketball/baseball can only muster a few 0-2 teams (utah jazz, phoenix suns, new jersey nets, san diego padres).

the amazing thing is that major league soccer is just a decade old. imagine what their futility mark could be like with another 30 years of championships to lose. how would you like to be part of a franchise like that? i meant to ask some of the 30,000+ Revolution fans as they were leaving the stadium grounds, but …

back to the twit. i’m normally not one to shower the hate on people, but it’s even worse that i can’t figure out why i loathe him so. part of it could his gawd awful kick medic commercials i have to watch every weekend on fox soccer channel. part of it could be that no matter how good he is for his club (83 goals in 145 appearances, or 57%) he is equally bad for his country (6 goals in 28 appearances, or 21%). or it could just be because he wears his shirts two sizes too small.

regardless, houston won their second straight (the only team other than D.C. to do that) and twinkle-toed twellman and the revs lost … all is right with the world.