Major League Soccer

Major League Soccer released its schedule for the 2008 season Thursday and it brought a sigh of relief from the Galaxy and David Beckham. Unlike last season when the Galaxy had to pack 19 MLS games, including 12 on the road, into 12 weeks in order to showcase its English midfield star after his mid-July arrival, this year will provide much smoother sailing on the Beckham Tour Part II. Beckham said earlier this week that he expects 2008 to be much less hectic.

Major League Soccer begins its 13th season Saturday, with an all-time high of 14 teams and a highest-ever average player salary of $115,000. Meanwhile, England's Premier League is approaching the end of its 16th season. It has 20 teams and its players earned an average of $1.35 million a year in 2006.

It would be easy for Sigi Schmid to gloat these days. No one would blame him for walking around with a self-satisfied smile, or even with the swagger that comes from having proved critics irrefutably wrong. But that's not who Schmid is, and the former UCLA and Galaxy coach is simply enjoying the moment. On Sunday, Schmid's Columbus Crew will play the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer's championship game at the Home Depot Center in Carson.

This column is supposed to be about how Major League Soccer can take the next great leap forward and about the sort of things that are holding it back from doing so right away. But first, a few words about Danny Cepero. Yes, the two would appear to have nothing in common, but they do. Just read on. Six weeks ago, Cepero was a soccer nobody, a 23-year-old goalkeeper and New York Yankees fan from Baldwin, N.Y., without a single second of professional experience.

Somehow, it was just meant to be. International soccer star David Beckham -- perhaps equally famous hereabouts as the husband of former pop singer "Posh" Spice -- announced Thursday in Madrid that he has agreed to a five-year, potential $250-million deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy, injecting a fresh shot of celebrity into a city where it is practiced as an art.

It took some really big dealers to wrap up the $250-million package that will bring soccer star David Beckham to Los Angeles later this year to play for the Galaxy in Major League Soccer. Key movers in the deal that began to take shape on New Year's Day included AEG President Tim Leiweke, "American Idol" creator Simon Fuller, Creative Arts Agency and executives at German shoe giant Adidas.

Major League Soccer on Thursday signed English star David Beckham to a five-year contract worth a potential $250 million to play in Los Angeles for the Galaxy. With a flourish of a pen, the league not only made the most significant move in its 11-year existence but also one of the most potentially far-reaching acquisitions in American sports history. It is also a bit of a gamble. The league believes that Beckham, even at 31, can do for soccer in the U.S.

His swerving free kick of a career was launched in Manchester, England, soaring about as high as a soccer player can climb, before bounding into an unplayable position at Real Madrid. But all the while, sooner or later, one way or another, David Beckham seemed destined for Hollywood. That it happened now, with a soon-to-be-32 Beckham ranking as the world's most expensive and renowned benchwarmer, makes sense from the Los Angeles perspective.

You're getting another beautiful face, Los Angeles. You don't seem to mind those. And you're getting quite the spry haircut, subject to change at any moment. Sometimes it seems every third young male skull in London bears the David Beckham cut that looks like it went along content to stay close to the head until it made a single sweep upward like a wavelet in a pond. You're getting a soccer midfielder, but let's shelve the minutiae for a moment.

FORGET ABOUT the Rose Bowl or Dodger Stadium. Soon the most globally renowned athlete in all of Los Angeles will be on display at Carson's cozy soccer pitch, the Home Depot Center. The L.A. Galaxy has signed David Beckham, Britain's aging midfielder and A-list celeb, to a staggering $250-million, five-year contract.