Freaking Galaxy! Take 2

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

That is all I could mutter as I sat and stared in disbelief at the TV screen. Somehow LA managed to lose 3-2 to Toronto FC, arguably the worst team in MLS. This game should have ended 3-0, 4-0, or at worst 4-1 in favor of LA.

Unfortunately, the galaxy have a couple of major problems on their hands. They come crashing out of the gate and dominate for the first 20 minutes, but then somewhere around the 21st minute, everyone except for Donovan and (it pains me to say it) Beckham, seem to just stop playing. The more I think about it, its no wonder we keep losing. We're essentially playing 2 on 11, with 9 muppets setup as all but stationary roadblacks for the last 70ish minutes. The kind of pressure these guys are putting on Lando and Becks takes it toll for sure. As you watch the highlights you'll see that Donovan misses 2 total gimme goals. Donovan *never* misses those things.

In the end, I don't even mind that they lost. I mean, of course I want them to win, but that's water under the bridge at this point. My main concern is much further reaching: I fear for the future of professional soccer in the US. As I have mentioned before, this is the team who spent more than the GDP of most countries getting one of the most recognized soccer names in the world to play for them. They now charge twice as much as every other team in the league for the privilege of coming to see them, presumably in order to pay that huge salary. But they still can't win, even against one of the worst teams in the league. If they don't get it together, this could be the start of a snowball effect that causes the death of this renaissance of American soccer.

Don't believe me? Lets go on a journey to the hypothetical future. Beckham will continue to get paid his $160,000 per game (no joke, that's what he makes just for showing up. Don't even get me started on endorsements, profit sharing, and so on). AEG (the evil Germany company who own's the galaxy) will be smarting from all the money they are losing because no one wants to pay 80$ per ticket (plus another 20 for parking) to see the Beckham and Donovan not able to do anything because their team sucks. No one else will be willing to risk bringing in big name players, or we'll end up with second rate has-bins like Blanco, because obviously, 1 or 2 good players is not enough to carry an entire team. And finally, soccer will be relegated back to the minor leagues of US sports, and all the naysayers will gloat "We told you so". Then, just to show just how far the ripple effect goes, American players will not be developing as well, catching the eyes of foreign clubs, and getting the experience necessary to continue the US National team's dominance of the CONCACAF region.

For better or worse, because of Beckham, the Galaxy are under tremendous pressure to perform. Everyone is watching them, and they will be the yardstick by which professional soccer in America is measured. If they succeed, the league should succeed with them, but if they fail (which they seem all to good at) they could take the joy of watching and participating in professional soccer away from millions of people.

Come on Galaxy, I know you have it in you. You won 2 MLS cups without Beckham! No one likes sequels, especially me, so I assure you the last thing I want is to have to write a "Freaking Galaxy! Take 3: The suck rolls on".