Becks Bows out of Spain

Tonight the headlines have been stolen by Beckham. In his final game for Real Madrid, they came back from a goal down to win 3-1 and secure the La Liga title...unfortunately for Dave, he was subbed off pretty early due to his foot injury but still, it was a good night for him and a good way to finish his career. A lot has been said about Dave, both good and bad, and his move to LA Galaxy has been anylised by a lot of pundits, so I figure I might as well have my say too. People say he wouldn't have gone to LA if he hadn't been frozen out of the England side, and it's a good point, publicly he claimed that he would never give up on England but over Christmas he must have thought he'd had his last game. But I also think the move to LA is about escaping his fame lifestyle. He has never looked entirely comfortable under the spotlight, despite his huge amount of publicity, and in LA he can life a more sheltered lifestyle, along with the hundreds of filmstars, and possibly let his kids get to school without being pursued by huge amounts of paparrazzi. Of course, he will not be entirely out of spotlight, but in an area where Victoria and himself can control their publicity in a way that they could never achieve whilst in England or Spain, or even Italy, which is the one league that could have tempted him away from LA. If he had still been part of the England squad a move to Italy would have been very tempting, a slower, more technical league where he could've played for a few more seasons, but he still would have had to put up with the press. LA looks more and more like the right decision for his family and him, he gets to try and change a whole country into loving football, Victoria is at the centre of celebrity fashion, and the kids can actually get to school without being mobbed. He will still play for England, and hopefully his game won't suffer, but good luck to him anyway.

In other news, the U21's made it through to the semi-final of the Euro Championship after beating Serbia 2-0 in a very controversial game. Lita got the first but the game then had be stopped, when the referee got the stadium announcer to broadcast an anti-racism message after English defender Nedum Onuaha was abused by the crowd, the game carried on but the second goal was scored whilst a Serbian player was down injured, which sparked a mass brawl between the two teams. Where to start, firstly racism has no place in the game and I hope FIFA punish the crowd members that abused the player, racism is something that is very rare in Holland and there can be no dithering about in this type fo situation, the Serbian footballing body is responsible for their fans and must be punished. With the second goal, the new rules brought in to football state that the referee is the one who has the power to stop the game when a player is injured, and that the players should carry on, so the players cannot be held to blame. However, I do dislike this rule and still believe that players should put out the ball, though I appreciate this is hard considering the amount of diving that goes on. It should still be an unwritten rule to put the ball out but you can no longer blame players for carrying on the brawl shouldn't have happened and I hope no England players are suspended for the next few games, Pearce has had enough to deal with already.

Well, no real transfer news, just the same old rumours, so goodnight all and I await the Sheffiel United hearing tomorrow with baited breath.