David and Victoria Beckham touched down in Los Angeles two years ago like celebrity meteors, sparking showers of attention and speculation about which restaurants they would favor, which A-listers they would befriend and what Victoria would do with herself.
After all, the whippet-thin fashion plate was already a pop culture force in her own right. In the 1990s, as Posh Spice, she was a member of one of the best-selling girl groups of all time, the Spice Girls. When she met her future husband, she was far more famous than he. Eventually, his fame eclipsed hers.
Helped by their good looks (including obvious surgical enhancements, in her case), the Beckhams marketed themselves as a single commodity. They choreographed their move to Los Angeles from Madrid with precision and an eye to what one wag called "world domination."
Almost predictably, it didn't work out, and the Beckhams now have Milan in their sights -- he for soccer reasons, she for the fashion opportunities the Italian city might present.
David Beckham managed to finagle a two-month loan from Major League Soccer's L.A. Galaxy to the Italian club AC Milan in the MLS off-season. He is supposed to be back in his Beverly Hills digs by March 9, readying for the 2009 Galaxy season that begins 13 days later. But he has repeatedly said he would prefer to stay in Italy.
He has "rediscovered" himself as a player, Beckham said, after two essentially futile and unsuccessful seasons in MLS. In Milan, surrounded by international superstars from half a dozen countries, Beckham is back on familiar turf and doesn't want to leave. "The possibility to play at Milan is something special," he said.
If Beckham's loudly debated transfer from the Galaxy to Milan becomes fact in the next week or so, as expected, he will have left only a modest imprint on the American soccer landscape, meteor or no meteor.
The Galaxy publicly says it is trying to keep him, but privately it already is resigned to losing him. Meanwhile, AC Milan, the eighth-richest soccer club on the planet, has offered only a $3-million transfer fee, a fraction of the Galaxy's asking price. Milan looks at Beckham and sees a soccer player who will turn 34 in May. The Galaxy, or at least its owner, AEG, looks at Beckham and sees a global icon who can rake in marketing millions.
"Ridiculous," Tim Leiweke, AEG's chief executive, said in response to Milan's paltry offer. The Galaxy wants four or five times as much.
