Sports Illustrated is running an excerpt from Grant Wahl's new book, The Beckham Experiment. Some of the tidbits the excerpt has:
- Becks won't pick up the check at dinner
- Becks pushed to be named captain of the team, Landon Donovan resisted (way to go, LD*!)
- Becks had his best friend hired by the Galaxy to find the new coach -- and didn't tell the team
- Ruud Gullit didn't have his team practice set pieces at all during the preseason, despite Becks being able to bend it like, well, Beckham
- Gullit would show up for a 10am practice at 9 and roll out at 12:30 -- a mere 30 minutes after practice ended
- LD attempted to broach the subject of Becks' playing too far back via SMS
From the excerpt it seems like Wahl (fabulous at covering soccer and college hoops) has relied heavily on LD as a source -- a good idea, since he had the most to gain and lose from Beck's arrival. This quote by LD on whether Becks was a good teammate says quite a bit:
""He's not. He's not shown that. I can't think of another guy where I'd say he wasn't a good teammate, he didn't give everything through all this, he didn't still care. But with [Beckham] I'd say no, he wasn't committed."
Photo courtesy of Amazon.com
* Yeah, yeah, so Donovan's play and effort over the 5 Confed Cup games has reignited my fan crush on him. Sue me.
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