DownSwinging.com

Last night in Los Angeles, the L.A. Galaxy played a match with a squad that included David Beckham for the first time in 5 months. To make it extra interesting, they were playing A.C. Milan, the team that Beckham has been playing with, and the team that he would like to continue his career with. Beckham has made his desire to join San Siro no secret, causing some uproar amongst Galaxy fans.

Needless to say, Beckham was greeted with a mixed reaction to say the least, with several anti-Beckham signs in the stands and certainly a good amount of booing. Just before half-time Beckham went over to the stands where some particularly raucous fans were shouting at him, allegedly to shake their hands, and things turned a bit ugly. Before I get into anything else, this was inordinately stupid of Beckham. Why would you ever try and interact with the fans that are hating on you? That can only go poorly, and sure enough it did. Becks has never exactly been Albert Einstein, and he sure demonstrated that yesterday. Just a poor, poor decision from the England international.

But what I really want to talk about here is why the fans are justified in giving Beckham the treatment he got last night. In some ways, this is partially caused by some culture differences, at least at the sporting level. European soccer players tend to be a bit more vocal regarding their own opinions of whatever situation they may be in.