Noted celebrity, philanthropist and sometime soccer player David Beckham was hit by the injury bug this past weekend and hit hard. With a torn Achilles, Beckham will miss what was to be his final World Cup. I’ll pause for a second as you reach for a tissue.
Seeing as how this is heartthrob news, we’ll now hear in-depth analysis from an 18-year-old girl on the stud muffin otherwise known as David Beckham:
“Like, as much as this sucks for Becks and Victoria, it’s totally bad for the American soccer team too, because David used to play for the British national team, which is called Manchester United, I bet you didn’t know I knew that. But anyway ever since he moved to LA to be a real celebrity he now plays for us and he’s the best on the team, so I think we don’t get to go try to win the World Cup in the Olympics now.”
But in all seriousness, England’s loss of one of the best dead ball strikers in the world, even if he is a bench player, is no joke. Combine the loss of Beckham with fellow geriatric fringe player Michael Owen being ruled out for this summer and currently injured Ashley Cole and the English seem to be going through something akin to the current US Soccer plague of injuries.
But amidst all of the injuries to both the Three Lions and the Yanks, not one entrenched starter from either team has been ruled out for the start of the World Cup in Rustenburg. As sports fandom, journalism and general awareness have taught us, expected recovery timetables reflect provisional estimates at best. So on June 12th we could see a pitch rife with the likes of Davies, Onyewu, and as many Cole’s as you can throw a stick at, or we could see a rag tag mix of starters and backups from both teams (some of them playing out of position at that!). Sadly for the Yanks, even if English players continue to trend toward the training table, a battle of backups tests the depth of a roster… and the country where footy is religion wins the battle of attrition hands down.
Galaxy fans aside, are you sad to see Beckham go down? Do you think this will make any difference in the opening match? Lest I forget to mention, Neil recently lost in a PES match between the US and England – with one of the goals courtesy of the foot of Mr. David Beckham.
Jon Levy is a senior writer and managing editor for The Yanks Are Coming. He can be reached at jon@yanksarecoming.com or @TYAC_Jon.