Hold on to those Galaxy tickets but it looks like David Beckham is returning to the LA Galaxy.
Tim Leiweke, the chief executive of AEG, which owns the Los Angeles Galaxy, said in an interview with the LA Times that AC Milan has not met Major League Soccer’s Friday deadline to make a better offer for the English midfielder and that no late offer would be considered.
“He will be back here on March 9 and we don’t want to entertain any more conversations now,” Leiweke said. “It is a distraction to [Galaxy Coach] Bruce Arena, the team and the fans and we move on. That’s the last we’re going to talk about this.”
Asked what would happen if AC Milan made an offer over the weekend or next week, Leiweke said:
“They’ll come back. Sure they will. But we owe it to our fans [not to consider it]. They’ve been reading all these stories and we lose credibility by the day. That’s not fair. We owe it to Bruce and we owe it to the rest of the team. We’re a month away from our season.”
Leiweke said AC Milan had not come close to offering what Beckham is worth.
“They’ve never been in the ballpark,” he said in terms of meeting AEG’s and the league’s asking price of more than $10 million. What they’ve tried to do is use David and use us. We’re not going to play that game any more. This has been extremely damaging and distracting for our team. I’ve been as courteous and as gracious as I possibly can out of respect for David, but now it’s time to move on. We need to get David excited about the team we’re building here and coming back.”
Here is the problem for the Galaxy. Beckham does not want to retutn to LA. In an interview with Beckham that appeared in Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday, it was evident that he wants to stay in Italy.
“I have nothing against the Galaxy,” he said. “Los Angeles has been a wonderful experience. But at Milan I have found great players who have been of great help to me. For the time being, things could not be going better.”
Do you think that Beckham is going to come back to MLS or will the Galaxy work out a deal with Milan?
I loved Diego Simeone as a player, and he started his coaching career at a high level winning Argentian championship with a team that didn’t win either never or for a very long time… but he finished badly with them at the end… So he needs to prove somewhere else the championship was not a fluke…
Another of my favorite players Paulo Sousa is a coach now too, but he needs even more work and results before being considered for Inter… Although Roberto Mancini didn’t have any experience before Inter either… So who knows?
Rijkaard played for Milan for too long, there is no room for him in Inter…. There is really not too many good options out there… If anyone should replace Mourinho, it could be Rafa Benites, Guus Hiddink maybe…. Laurent Blanc could be an interesting choice, especially because he also played for Inter…
Sometimes people are too inpatient… To me there is no question that Mourinho should stay for at least one more season or even more… When he came in last year, I could guess he didn’t want half of the players on the team, yet considering not best economic situation and being new in a new country and club, he made a decision to keep every single player from Roberto Mancini’s era!!!! How many coaches would do that?
Also to bring his qualities to the team, he got only 2 players (Muntari and Quaresma; Mancini was already set to come by Moratti)… Considering Quaresma experiment failed he had only Muntari + old Inter team… So to not get a desired result last year is understandable….
This year transfers were also not perfect…. All summer he tried to get Carvalho and Deco (although I am glad Deco didn’t come), and some other players… Lucio, Snejder and Eto’O came in very late not participating in summer practices with the team…. He was also sure Ibrahimovic will stay for at least one more year too, and Inter played through Zlatan (by the way, Ibra is having another great year in Barcelona, his role has changed, and he is becoming even more lethal player now) 95% of all attacks…
Now also considering the injuries to some players (Thiago Motta, Eto’O, Milito, Snejder, Cambiasso were all injured at some point), he still didn’t have enough time to build the Inter he wants. So to expect unbelievable results from him TODAY is almost unrealistic…
At the same time, in 30-45 minutes stretches of some games we saw the Inter it can be… We beat Milan 4:0, Genoa 5:0…. So I am ok with giving Mourinho more time. I do want to believe we will not wait for much longer for the Champions League!
One more point: all I wrote here… considering I believe we beat Dinamo Kiev next week, we advance to the next round and play decent up there… But if we lose in Kiev and after in Barcelona too, I might change my mind completely!!! One thing is not winning the Champions League this year (or getting even close), and another thing to become a laughing stock in Europe…
Great points Norman on how Inter has won its last four titles. Rijkaard would be an interesting choice to replace Mourinho. I wonder what Eto’o would think of that move?
Yes, get rid of Jose and bring in someone with experience of winning Champ Lg, like Frank Rijkaard.
Having said that, I must also state that although Inter won 4 Serie A titles in a row undeservingly. Remember that Calciopoli gifted Inter the trophy in 2006. In 2007, w/o Juventus and with Milan, Lazio & Fiorentina all deducted pts, Inter only had to beat Roma to win trophy with a ridiculous 22 point difference.
Juventus returned to Serie A to challenge for 2008 trophy. But they were in such a weaken state because many of their players had left and have not returned. Even then, Inter managed to win trophy with only a 2pts lead over Roma as the quality of Serie A improved with the return of Juventus.
In the season of 2008/09, Juventus managed to recover most of their strength and challenged Inter for trophy. Although Juventus did not succeed but they managed to show the world that they are back in business by getting 2nd place.
Let me posed back a question to your statement “Inter did not need any help wining domestically”. Did Inter get any undeserved advantages in winning those trophies?