Breathless: Beckham shows the strain during LA Galaxy's MLS Cup final defeat
Beckham got 3 injection painkiller for his ankle injuries.Wear off in 50minute of the 2 hour game.Seen in pain and breathless.
Class act: Real Salt Lake skipper Kyle Beckerman (R) paid tribute to Beckham
Losing the US League with penalty shot out ,LA Galaxy lost 5-4 to Salt Lake.Beckham went to Salt Lake locker rooms to congrats the new league winners.
Moving on: Beckham must quickly get over his American failure with a loan move to Serie A giants AC Milan on the cards for December until the end of the season.He has to play well to impress to get a chance to be with Fabio Capella world group team England in Afrika World Cup 2010.
Breathless in Seattle: Beckham puffs on an inhaler after LA Galaxy's MLS Cup final defeat to Real Salt Lake
Carry on: Medical experts insists Beckham should have no concerns over his asthma during his playing career
David Beckham's big secret was revealed when it emerged that the most high-profile footballer on the planet has suffered from asthma since he was a boy.
The 34-year-old finished 120 minutes of LA Galaxy’s Major League Soccer Cup Final coughing violently after playing extra time for the second time in nine days.
Beckham was photographed using an inhaler during the game, which ended in a 5-4 shoot-out loss to Real Salt Lake.
Amazingly, given all the pictures taken of the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star, it is the first time he had ever been snapped using an inhaler.
Beckham will return to AC Milan next month as part of a marathon campaign to win his place at the World Cup, where altitude will be a factor, and England may want to monitor his breathing.
Beckham takes regular medicine to control his asthma, which makes it all the more remarkable that he had managed to keep his condition under wraps for so long.
LA Galaxy said the inhaler was to help Beckham battle allergies, but the player’s agent Simon Oliveira said: ‘David has suffered with this since he was a young boy, but it has obviously had no effect on his performance.
He has never sought to make it public but if it does inspire any sufferer to think they can achieve great things like many other sportsmen have done then so much the better.’
Dr Mike Thomas, chief medical adviser to Asthma UK, said: ‘Asthma is particularly common among elite sportspeople. Paul Scholes and Paula Radcliffe both suffer with the condition — proof that asthma needn’t stop you competing at the highest level.’
David Beckham was out of breath and limping, but the England midfielder remains Los Angeles Galaxy's brightest star
David Beckham sat on a bench in the LA Galaxy locker room at Qwest Field stadium here on Sunday night looking uncomfortable with the scenes unfolding around him.
The Galaxy’s all-white strip was discarded on the floor, trampled on by reporters and camera crews trying to grab a word with Major League Soccer’s highest-paid star.
The 34-year-old midfielder has been largely shielded from the American practice of allowing the media to enter the dressing room to speak with players after the match and looked ill at ease.
Not that I blame him: it feels extremely odd to walk into what in Britain is considered a sanctuary and ask for post-match analysis while surreptitiously trying to avoid looking at anything you shouldn’t.
Beckham was wearing the navy pinstriped trousers of his cup final suit, a gift to the team from fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, and winced as he pulled a brown sock over his tender right ankle. His pristine white shirt was still on the peg, his tattoos exposed.
He stood up, turned his back to the media and coughed violently, the asthma that caused him to draw heavily on an inhaler after the game having taken its toll. He looked much slimmer than the powerful athlete of old.
Beckham had three injections in his right ankle to play in the MLS Cup Final against Real Salt Lake on Sunday night but the painkillers wore off after 50 minutes of the two-hour match, which the Galaxy lost 5-4 on penalties after extra-time after the score had been level at 1-1 at 90 minutes.
He said: ‘It got worse and worse during the game but that’s what happens when you get an injury like that. It’s part of it.
‘It’s the end of the (MLS) season now. I’ll have rehabilitation and just give it a little bit of rest because it’s been like this for a few rampant weeks. Bone bruising is one of those injuries that doesn’t really go away until you just rest it and take some time off, so I’m just going to have to do that over the next few weeks.’
In the last 15 minutes, Beckham was limping but he stayed on the pitch because the Galaxy had used all three of their substitutes.
He still volunteered to take — and convert — his side’s first penalty, but hobbled back to the centre circle and then ventured into Salt Lake’s dressing room to congratulate
the new league champions.
Salt Lake captain Kyle Beckerman said: ‘He’s a class act, he really is. I wouldn’t expect that from anybody and for him to come in here and congratulate us — he’s just a class act, top drawer. He’s done a lot for our league. And I know it wasn’t easy for him to lose this game. He wanted it just as much as everybody else. He came and congratulated us, and that was big time.’
There may be other chances for Beckham to become the second Englishman to win championships in three different countries (Trevor Steven did so in England, Scotland and France). But now his attention turns to AC Milan and England.
Beckham is set to rejoin the Italian club on December 28, knowing he must impress again in Serie A to have a chance of making Fabio Capello’s World Cup squad.
‘Hopefully my ankle will be all right for then,’ he said.
In the intervening weeks, Beckham will spend America’s Thanksgiving holiday with his
family and then travel 10,000 miles to South Africa, where he will be an ambassador for England’s 2018 World Cup bid at the draw for next year’s tournament in Cape Town on December 4.
It’s not immediately obvious when his much-needed rest is going to happen, but Beckham was not in the mood to countenance the thought of failure in Milan.
He said: ‘It was a challenge the last time I went there. People said that I’d maybe play only one or two games and I ended up playing every one apart from one.
‘I’m going to go there, I’m going to work hard with the team and, hopefully, I can play some part.
‘Whether people still want to question my commitment, nothing like that’s going to make me lose any sleep, so if people still want to do it, then let them do it. I’ve gone past that.’
After Milan and ‘hopefully’ a fourth World Cup for England, Beckham has insisted he will return to the Galaxy to see out the remaining 18 months of his £20million, five-year contract.
If Sunday night was about proving his commitment to the American side, he certainly
succeeded. Even on one leg, Beckham was the best player on the pitch. He was wasted on the right wing but pinged the ball around with typical elegance and accuracy, even if the player to whom it was directed wasn’t always on the same wavelength.
An 81st-minute free kick to the hapless Edson Buddle was a prime example.
Beckham anticipated Buddle’s run to the far post and took a quick free kick that the striker failed to control.
Landon Donovan, the USA striker who criticised Beckham so vehemently six months ago, was similarly disappointing, particularly for a player voted the MLS’s most valuable of 2009.
The 27-year-old did provide an exquisite cross for Mike Magee to put the Galaxy 1-0 up after 41 minutes, but his play lacked discipline and his penalty was just awful — chipped over the bar into Row Z.
Galaxy’s defending for Real Salt Lake’s equaliser — a 64th-minute strike from Robbie Findley after Yura Movsisyan’s shot had been blocked by Donovan Ricketts — was equally poor, but nothing should be taken away from Salt Lake’s achievement. They sneaked into the play-offs in eighth place and walked away with the big prize.
But I expected more. The artificial pitch didn’t help as the ball skidded and skipped off the surface but, in the city which boasts the original Starbucks — and 490 of the brand’s coffee shops, we were served a cold, decaffeinated, skinny latte instead of the feisty espresso we so desired.
The pre-match entertainment in nearby Occidental Park and the four-block ‘March to the Match’ had successfully drummed up excitement among the 46,011 fans — mostly 30-something men, teenage girls and families with children sporting Seattle Sounders colours — and I was beginning to think I might quite like American soccer.
It was slightly bewildering to see such a neutral crowd at a nation’s cup final but, as twinkling pieces of metallic paper cascaded down from the roof during the national anthem, I started to think a star-spangled pitch wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
But, unfortunately, when the red carpet was removed and the razzle-dazzle died down, there was little of substance underneath.
Beckham was running on empty but still managed to run the show.
You just wonder how long he can keep putting his body on the line.
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