Beckham to wear commemorative boots in final home match

Style has never been a problem for David Beckham.

On the eve of his final home match as a professional soccer player, Beckham announced he will be lacing up these custom boots for Paris Saint-Germain’s match against Brestois. He has partnered up with adidas to create these and it’s clear that they are carrying some signature Beckham style.

Beckham announced his decision on Facebook stating:

“I wanted to show the passion I had playing for my country and the pride that gave me during my career. You also see the names of Victoria and the kids which have always been there on my boots.”

A touching tribute from a true family man.

Mar

President Barack Obama welcomes LA Galaxy to the White House

President Barack Obama welcomed Landon Donovan and his Los Angeles Galaxy teammates to the White House on Tuesday honoring the MLS Cup champions’ second consecutive league championship.

Obama honored the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League, whose Stanley Cup was on display in the East Room. He also welcomed the LA Galaxy, the championship Major League Soccer team.

Mar

Donovan enjoying time off … in Madison?

Photo courtesy of @23botter

The United States men’s national team hosts a crucial World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica Friday night. With numerous injuries plaguing Jurgen Klinsmann’s squad, you would figure Landon Donovan - USA’s all-time leader in goals and assists - could step in to help his country earn a World Cup bid, right?

Guess again.

The LA Galaxy star, currently on an organized sabbatical, was spotted in Middleton, Wis., earlier this week playing pickup soccer at an indoor facility and wearing, of all things, a University of Wisconsin soccer T-shirt.

Predicting David Beckham’s future

By Leander Schaerlaeckens

Admission: Football Manager plays a pretty big part in how I form opinions on soccer players.

I’ve been playing the unfathomably detailed simulator since long before I discovered girls. And – thanks to an actual network of scouts rating many thousands of players around the world – it’s proved uncannily prescient. I knew about many a promising young player long before he surfaced in real life thanks to the game. And more often than not, how a young player developed within the game more or less corresponded to his career trajectory in reality. The clubs he went to and stats he put up weren’t exact, of course, but the sort of career he had was accurate an astonishing amount of the time.

So when Football Manager’s makers SI Games sent me a simulation of how David Beckham would do at the various clubs that are rumored to be interested in signing the free agent who recently departed the Los Angeles Galaxy, I actually took it more seriously than the idle speculation of pundits and such. As these last U.S. presidential elections showed us, our grasp of the numbers has outpaced our ability for cognitive predictions.

Here then, some highlights of the predictions made by SI Games:

Dec

Here’s a cool video from MLS.com showing all the different angles of Omar Gonzalez’s equalizing goal for the Galaxy during last night’s MLS Cup. Take a look!

Dec

Landon Donovan’s curtain call?

By: Jamie Trecker

Carson, Calif.

Landon Donovan went from goat to hero in the space of an hour Saturday afternoon, rescuing what had been a lackluster performance with a game-defining penalty kick. For long stretches of the match, the American star had played with his head down and what seemed like a heavy heart, summed up in an atrocious 13th minute miss. With time and space, and off a fine ball served by Robbie Keane, Donovan inexplicably missed the target with a chance that it would have been easier to simply put on frame.

The final months of this season have been strange for Donovan, a player once considered the golden boy of the American game. So much had been heaped on his shoulders over the years – the endorsements, the responsibility of winning big games for the national team, and in many ways, the spirit of the modern American game itself. This year, the toll that pressure took surfaced in a series of interviews Donovan gave late this MLS season, where he indicated he was considering walking away from the game entirely.

Dec

FOX Soccer sits down with Major League Soccer’s commissioner Don Garber to discuss the MLS Cup Final and what the future holds for MLS.

Nov

According to an EA Sports FIFA Soccer 13 video game simulation, the Los Angeles Galaxy will win its second straight MLS Cup with a thrilling 2-1 victory over the Houston Dynamo in front of a sold-out crowd at The Home Depot Center on Saturday afternoon.

Galaxy captain Landon Donovan scored in the 21st minute to give the defending champions an early 1-0 lead over Houston. The Dynamo leveled the score when forward Will Bruin headed home the equalizer past the LA defense in the 65th minute.

Yet the Galaxy later secured their second consecutive MLS title as striker Robbie Keane punched the winner at the during minutes of the second half.

Nov

Five things to watch: Los Angeles Galaxy vs. Vancouver Whitecaps

By Kyle McCarthy

The Knockout Round comes to a close Thursday night when the Vancouver Whitecaps visit the Los Angeles Galaxy. Here are a few points to watch ahead of the affair at the Home Depot Center:

1. How will Martin Rennie deal with his lineup dilemma?: Rennie would probably prefer to find a place for seasoned, if somewhat out-of-form, Scotland internationals Kenny Miller and Barry Robson for this one-off fixture. Their experience would probably benefit the side given the enormity of the task at hand. The major problem: the team, as a whole, may stand a better shot with more speed on the field.

2. Dictating the tempo: Vancouver emerged with a 0-0 draw at Real Salt Lake on Saturday by adopting a conservative approach. A similar gambit represents one of two viable options for Rennie because his side is organized enough in its probable 4-2-3-1 setup to stand a decent chance of holding out. The other involves deploying the likes of Darren Mattocks, Dane Richards and Camilo Sanvezzo to increase the speed available and push the cadence of the game past the point where the Galaxy feels comfortable. If the game settles into a steady rhythm, then the balance tips heavily in the Galaxy’s favor.