I'd also like to meet "Becks", except for different reasons. If I ever got the opportunity I'd like to thank him for reintroducing some of the magic back into football for me; now, whenever I see an English right sided midfielder taking someone on and getting beyond them to put a cross in, tackling back, winning a header or doing something other than simply taking a free-kick or passing the ball a long way, or when I see an English captain taking charge of his side or grabbing a game by the scruff of the neck to get his team's heads up when it's not going well, I feel as though I have witnessed some magical occurence after many long years spent watching Beckham not do any of those things.
As far as the Reds' season so far, it's ticking along rather than actually exploding into life as most of us expected it to. I'm not actually too concerned about the loss to Chelski or Everton, the biggest frustration for me is that we can't seem to do three things at once; over the past few years we've been defending like Spartans, playing well in the middle third and creating opportunities which our strikers were squandering with abandon, and now we're getting good at scoring, still playing well in the middle, but the defensive line are falling to bits. Reina's having a bad patch, Carragher doesn't look fit, Hyypia's past his best, Agger and Warnock are good but they're still young, and neither Finnan, Riise or Aurelio inspire confidence in holding the line despite the fact they're all quite good at getting forward. That said I still reckon Rafa's finding his best 11, the summer signings are still bedding in and I reckon despite the shitty start (you think losing at Arsenal and drawing against Reading is bad? 0-0 against Sheffield United and losing 3-0 to fucking Everton is far more embarrassing) we'll be up there this year. I've been impressed with the new faces thus far, Kuyt, Pennant and Gonzalez in particular, and as soon as Rafa finds that magic 11 I reckon it'll be clobbering time. As far as United going, loathe as I am to compliment the Salford Scum they're not looking nearly as rattled as most were expecting them to in the summer, especially given the departure of Van Nistelrooy and the transfer window debacle that saw them sign one player for a stupidly inflated price and get turned down by West Brom's goalie. United are a good side, the results against Arsenal and Reading were a fart in the bath. I wouldn't worry about them, Fergie's still got a quality squad and a first team most managers would kill for, they'll finish third no bother 😀
MLS. I think you've pretty much got to the heart of the problem here; you can fix the format and raise the quality of the football and institute all the youth policies you want, but at the end of the day if nobody cares about it then it's still not going to get the profitability or respect on the world stage that it has the potential to achieve. I also don't think the standard of the domestic leagues in the surrounding countries helps, since it's the continental competitions which are the real big money-spinners and interest-grabbers in most cases. Any sort of Champions League in the Americas would involve long trips to Argentina and Brazil or pointless wasted visits to the likes of Jamaica and St. Kitts & Nevis to play the local Yardies off the park. That doesn't help the cause much either I don't think.
