David Beckham will become the first player honored with a statue at a Major League Soccer stadium.
Beckham — a player with just 118 appearances in the league — is getting the highest honor a club can bestow upon a player, as the LA Galaxy are planning to unveil a statue of the midfielder before the MLS season opener against the Chicago Fire on March 2 at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
LA Galaxy Confidential noted the possibility on Wednesday and ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle reported Thursday that club officials confirmed the David Beckham statue.
As far as we know, this will be the first statue for an MLS player at an MLS stadium. And it’s an interesting choice.
Beckham barely cracks the top five all-time players for the LA Galaxy, the most successful club in MLS history with five league titles. This is a club that has employed the likes of Landon Donovan, Robbie Keane, Cobi Jones, Alexi Lalas, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Ashley Cole, Carlos Ruiz, Kevin Hartman and Gyasi Zardes.
There’s no way anyone would consider Beckham a more important player to the Galaxy than Donovan, the team’s all-time leader in goals (141) and assists (107), not to mention the MLS leader in both categories. After Donovan, you’d probably have to pick club-record holders Robbie Keane (104 goals) or Cobi Jones (306 appearances) as the next two most important players to the franchise. Maybe then Beckham enters the competition around four or five, though Ibrahimovic would probably argue he’s No. 1.
Of course, Beckham was always about more than his on-field contributions.
Becks was a mega-star who arrived in the States to bring credence to a league still struggling to make its mark on the American sports scene. He was the first Designated Player ever signed in MLS, bringing unprecedented coverage to the league as a former Manchester United and Real Madrid star, not to mention his dreamy appearance.
Beckham did win two MLS Cups in six seasons with the Galaxy, scoring 20 goals in 118 appearances while not out on loan to AC Milan.
Beckham’s arrival in MLS sparked this current period of successful growth the league could only have dreamed of in its first decade of existence.
He joined the Galaxy in 2007 from Real Madrid, sparking a wave of talented foreigners able to get paid decent wages that didn’t count against the salary cap, paving the way for the likes of Keane, Thierry Henry, David Villa, Didier Drogba, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Andrea Pirlo, Kaka, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney to join the league.
Nowadays, Beckham continues to shape MLS with his ownership of Inter Miami, slated to join the league in 2020.
The England international will be on hand at Dignity Health Sports Park (formerly the less wordy StubHub Center) on March 2 for the unveiling of the David Beckham statue.
Let’s hope the statue doesn’t turn out like this one.
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