Donovan Rips Becks

Fresh off giving up a 2 goal halftime lead on Brazil in the FIFA Confederations Cup Final, Team USA veteran and L.A. Galaxy captain Landon Donovan is coming out with a book where he blatantly rips into David Beckham and makes no bones about his disappointment in the highest paid player in the MLS. Listen, I had high hopes for Beckham's move to the MLS along with thousands of Americans. As a soccer fan, I wanted to see his transfer take the sort ot a new level and it hasn't, for many reasons. Sure it sometimes feels that Becks and Posh (can I call them that even though I'm not British?) are more about Hollywood than about taking the soccer move seriously, but wasn't that kind of expected. I mean, Tom Cruise showed up to a Real Madrid game...maybe that should have been an early sing about the "circles" the Beckhams run in.

Here are some excerpts from Donovan's book called The Beckham Experiment (notice that the book markets itself on Beckham's name, not Donovan's):

All that we care about at a minimum is that he committed himself to us, as time has gone on, that has not proven to be the case in many ways - on the field, off the field. Does the fact that he earns that much more money come into it? Yeah. If someone's paying you more than anybody in the league, more than double anybody in the league, the least we expect is that you show up to every game, whether you are suspended or not. Show up and train hard, show up and play hard."

Donovan, also questioned the former England skipper's leadership abilities, claiming he is too often silent in team meetings.

"Maybe he's not a leader, maybe he's not a captain, fair enough. But at a minimum, you should bust your ass every day. That hasn't happened. And I don't think that's too much for us to expect. Especially when he's brought all this on us.

However, I don't know if Donovan should really be ripping into his teammate (they are still apart of the same club). For US soccer fans, Donovan has had a lackluster career as a National Player. He played very well last week in South Africa, but his career is still largely associated with someone who misses many open shots, fails to lead the team in big matches and has a skill set that primarily focused on speed as oppossed to touch and finishing ability.

All I'm saying is, maybe not the best move to go out and rip Beckham; he makes more money than you, has done more for soccer than you have, has played better at a higher level for a longer time than you have and in the end, wins...something you have only done in the MLS and even that has been mising lately!