The real pity then about the tortuous build-up to Beckham's scheduled debut in last night's friendly against Chelsea, complete with will or won't his left ankle allow him to start drama, is that it detracted from a very positive couple of weeks in the history of the MLS. Several of the league's youngest luminaries, including Altidore, are just returning to action following a month lighting up the World Under-20 Cup in Canada. They hammered Poland 6-1 and defeated Brazil and Uruguay before bowing out in the quarter-finals to Austria. In their hands and particularly at their feet, the future of the sport in these parts has never looked brighter.

Throw in the announcement the other day that another billionaire has unveiled plans to buy into the league by bringing the San Jose Earthquakes back into the competition next season and the impression grows that in its 12th season, MLS is finally starting to flourish. Especially considering that Mexican icon Cuauhtemoc Blanco is coming straight from third-place at Copa America to spark what is expected to be a Hispanic frenzy for the Chicago Fire this very weekend. Against that background, MLS has never looked stronger.

Unfortunately, it has also never looked more ridiculous. All too predictably, the English journalists went a little berserk earlier this week when they watched the Galaxy get embarrassed by Mexican club Tigres. Ignoring the fact it was an inane friendly of the sort these same journalists wouldn't take very seriously had the venue been London rather than Los Angeles, what was the surprise here?

The Galaxy have been one of the worst teams in the MLS for the past two years and Tigres are a top side in their own country. Factor in that Mexico has a World Cup finals record comparable to England's over the past three decades and their best outfits should be eminently capable of putting three goals past a weak American club.

Quick enough to judge the MLS and dismiss the Galaxy on a bad performance in a meaningless fixture, the London media appeared slower to mention a few more pertinent facts such as America is now a country with a healthy and growing soccer audience. When Mexico took on the US in the Gold Cup (a Concacaf tournament) last month, it drew a television audience nearly twice that of the final game of ice hockey's recent Stanley Cup finals. Last summer's World Cup final between Italy and France was watched by 16.9 million Americans. That's approximately 1.1 million more than was averaged by baseball's World Series games in October. Who needs Beckham?

Apart from Adidas and the celebrity magazines.

The real shock is nobody saw fit either to posit the argument that an admittedly lacklustre Galaxy squad may be even worse than they were last season because of morale issues. Imagine how difficult it was for some of these players to get themselves up for the season when they learned a new team-mate joining about halfway through the campaign was going to earn the equivalent of some of their annual salaries . . . one centre-half is on $17,700 ( 12,800) . . . in a day. Most of them have said all the right things to newspapers and television cameras about being honoured to tog out alongside such an ahem, legend. However, the jealousy and resentment that are staples in every dressing-room have been festering nicely now for over six months.

It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that some in the squad are growing ever more bitter as they see the hyperbole surrounding the footballer formerly known as the fifth-best player on the Manchester United team of the late '90s.

Just to offer a flavour of how completely the local media have bought into the hype, ESPN were planning a broadcast for last night's marketing extravaganza/match with Chelsea that would make Sky Sports look restrained and moderate. The American network had a camera trained on the crowd at all times in search of celebrities lured to the Home Depot Centre for the occasion, put on a red-carpet pre-game show, and brought New Orleans' Saints' running-back Reggie Bush into the commentary booth to discuss the joys of shooting an Adidas commercial with Beckham.

All this for a guy who might end up playing as few as three competitive matches for one of the worst teams in the league. Truly bizarre. At least we have the progress of Altidore . . . he scored his first MLS goal at 16 . . . to monitor as an antidote to all this perverseness. Failing that, a television show called The Soupwhich relentlessly pokes fun at pop culture and celebrities has added a glorious new weekly segment. Aiming to chronicle the various incidents of lunacy accompanying Beckham and his wife, that part of the programme has been named "Somebody Call Immigration".