DownSwinging.com

“All that we care about at a minimum is that he committed himself to us. As time has gone on, that has not proven to be the case in many ways – on the field, off the field. Does the fact that he earns that much more money come into it? Yeah. If someone’s paying you more than anybody in the league, more than double anybody in the league, the least we expect is that you show up to every game, whether you are suspended or not. Show up and train hard, show up and play hard. Maybe he’s not a leader, maybe he’s not a captain. Fair enough. But at a minimum, you should bust your ass every day. That hasn’t happened. And I don’t think that’s too much for us to expect. Especially when he’s brought all this on us. When David first came, I believed he was committed to what he was doing. He cared. He wanted to do well. He wanted the team and the league to do well. Somewhere along the way – and in my mind it coincides with Ruud being let go – he just flipped a switch and said, ‘Uh-huh, I’m not doing it anymore’.”

- Landon Donovan in, new book, ‘The Beckham Experiment’

As you read above, there is, or I guess was, a lot of emotion held in by the USA vice-captain, Landon Donovan, who shares a dressing room with David Beckham. Beckham arrived in L.A. almost two years ago, and his influence on his new team, the Los Angeles Galaxy, has been less than ideal. There are a number of problems I have with this entire situation. Lets deal with them chronologically: