Well, we made it.

My brother (a Galaxy season ticket holder (yes, they sell season tickets to MLS teams)) and I made the journey to Carson, which I discovered is just south of Compton. Ah. All ya little gangstas, who you think helped mold 'em all? Now you wanna run around talkin bout guns like I ain't got none. Well, you would be correct. I have a Swiss army knife and I can bench upwards of 100 pounds. Wait, what were we talking about?

Anyway, you can read commentary on the game and the future of footsoc (or whatever we're calling it) and how Beckham is going to change American sport forever and all the celebrities that were in attendance on other sites and in other places. I just want to offer this brief moment that made the whole trip worth it for me:

Landon Donovan, resident best player this side of the pond, always has to take the corner kicks for the Galaxy, simply because he is far better than anyone else on the team. However, as a scoring forward, his natural position should of course be *receiving* corner kicks, something he never gets to do. During stoppage time after the second half, the Galaxy (for pretty much the first time on the attacking side since Beckham's entrance) were going to get a corner kick. Everybody knew what this meant, as we saw Beckham begin to jog toward the far corner. The crowd rose to their feet, a low roar becoming Lakers-playoff intense in just a few short seconds. We were about to see David Beckham take a corner kick. The stuff of legend. The stuff of movie titles.

The stadium camera didn't show Beckham on the big screen though-- for maybe the first time all game. What they showed was Landon Donovan finally--finally!--jogging toward the center of goal to receive a corner kick. And he was about to take it from David Farking Beckham. The smile on Donovan's face was huge. Enormous. Ear-to-ear-grin, a smile like one rarely sees in professional sports. Or anywhere. it looked like the unchecked smile of a kid. It looked like one of that kid's dreams had just come true. I'm sure that Donovan--three months older than me--had grown up dreaming about one day taking a corner kick from Beckham. And it was about to happen. He looked... overjoyed.

The kick sailed low and was headed clear by Chelsea. Which is generally what happens, yes. But for those five seconds, Donovan had a look on his face that reminds me why I like sports in the first place. It doesn't always work out, but damn, when it does it's something transcendent.

OK, enough of that now. Here's a picture of me drinking something at the game, with a big banner of Big Smiles Donovan behind me. I know it's not a bottle of something as promised, but Budweiser was $7 and a big ol' effing lemon*de was $5. I'm in California, bitches, we love our citrus fruits.

 Subscribe to my feed

2 Comments

Comments