Too bad MLS can't auction off Beckham

David Beckham's desire to leave Major League Soccer for AC Milan says more about him than it does the state of the pro game in the United States.

And despite MLS still suffering from the same inferiority complex that brought Beckham here, it really isn't half bad.

He was paid plenty to come, but when Beckham & Co. made his much-ballyhooed splashdown two years ago, he was 31 and already more a complementary part than a star. He did what he could on the field, for the most part. But he arrived hurt, wasn't available for duty much during his first season with the Los Angeles Galaxy, and wound up surrounded by a weak team in the last one.

The Galaxy's marketing team and the sponsors who kicked in the rest of the millions that lured him here on top of his $32.5 million, five-year contract turned out to be weaker still.

They never held Beckham to his promises about being "an ambassador" and to be "part of the growth of the game in the States."

We think American pro athletes are insulated, but it doesn't compare to the cocoons Europe's biggest football stars have built for themselves.

Despite living here, it was almost like Beckham never left there.

His recent return to form while on loan to AC Milan shouldn't be much of a surprise, either. In Italy, Beckham has better players on every side to handle the pressure, and more lethal finishers ready to pounce at the end of every delivery. He's got more motivation, too, trying to earn his way back onto England's World Cup squad in 2010, in no small part so he can take possession of the record for most appearances wearing the national shirt.

So despite what you hear from LA and MLS headquarters, he's as good as gone. The matter has already been turned over to the lawyers, which prompted the Los Angeles Times to tidily sum up his American legacy this way: "Thirty games played for the Galaxy. Five goals scored.

A lot of squealing female fans. A lot of Galaxy jerseys sold. A few more fans in seats. A bit of media buzz." Anything beyond those modest accomplishments will have to be negotiated, and this is where the opportunity and the lesson for MLS lies.

When Beckham arrived, commissioner Don Garber insisted his league had learned from the mistakes pro football made in the past, specifically the rise and fall of the North American Soccer League - this country's first real flirtation with the world's most popular game.

During the 1970s, a few corporate moguls with influence and deep pockets spent lavishly to collect over-the-hill icons like Pele, Johan Cruyff and Giorgio Chinaglia and tried to sell the sport from the top down. After a heady few seasons marked by big crowds and rampant overspending, interest fell off, the bottom fell out and the NASL closed up shop in 1984.

It was another 10 years before America's next flirtation with football, playing host to the 1994 World Cup, which gave rise to the NASL's successor, MLS. The difference, as Garber never tired of saying, is that the MLS was building from the bottom up.

It was holding down salaries and carefully targeting the millions of kids and their parents swept up in the tidal wave of youth programs. Most important, it was keeping its fingers crossed until a homegrown American player or the U.S. team broke through on the world stage.

"If there is a tipping point," he said at the time, "that's when it will come." Instead, he helped the Galaxy pull the trigger on the Beckham deal and kept his fingers crossed. Now would be the perfect time to uncross them and prove that MLS has learned as much from the rest of the world about conducting the business of football as it has about playing the game.

If MLS force Beckham to return on March 9, as his loan contract calls for, and make him play one more season, he walks away at the end of it for free. Instead, it should make sure Milan pays more than the $3 million it's offering and closer to the $10 million MLS wants.

Then it should get the guarantee of a summer tour - including a stop in Los Angeles - by AC Milan.

CHICAGO, AP