By now everyone has heard of England's abysmal failure to qualify for Euro 2008. But lost in the shuffle is that while this is a terrible result for English players and the FA, MLS stands to benefit quite nicely.
Had England qualified, David Beckham would almost certainly have made the team unless he was hurt (and if he was hurt he would be useless to MLS anyway). A call-up for Euro 2008 would have deprived MLS of its biggest star for at least 6 weeks during the height of the MLS season.
But now, MLS, Alexei Lalas and Ruud Gullitt can breathe easy knowing their man will be around. Becks has already taken his show on the road to Australia and apparently the Galaxy sold 20,000 jerseys as a result.
So while I'm bummed that England won't be in the tournament, I'm glad that MLS will get a chance to build on this year's momentum, and who knows, maybe even steal a little of Europe's thunder next summer...
2 comments:
Indeed a fortunate break for MLS!
And, frankly, England don't deserve to go to Euro 2008 after the all-time choke job they pulled at the end of qualifying.
MLS should package MLS vacation deals to English fans during the Euro tournament. It could help get their minds off their failure to qualify and provide a little boost to the league!
More seriously, perhaps now we can see one or more friendlies arranged between England and the U.S. They'll need the games under their new coach, and it would be a huge draw (on both sides of the pond, I think).
a home-and-home England-USA friendly series would be fantastic, and would undoubtedly generate good ratings and media buzz.
England didn't deserve to qualify--maybe this is the groin kick the FA needed to finally get a coach to shake things up. As much I detest the Special One, I think Mourinho is the perfect coach to take over this team and blow it up...provided he agrees in his contract that he will not try to force Gerrard and Lampard into the same midfield.
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