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David Beckham: You Say Goodbye...

by Christopher McIntosh
07/25/2007

And I say Hello.

Hello, Hello.

I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello.

Thus endeth the best summary of Beckham's great American adventure via an ESPN commercial that left both me AND my soccer ambivalent wife groping for the Tivo.

Number 23 (7 in the hearts of all those who refuse to acknowledge the well coiffed one's departure from Man U) is shot leaving Spain, while the news plays in England. A pub turns away wistfully and with the bland disgust that comes with a not quite right ending to a relationship with someone you can't bring yourself to dislike. A girl in Spain cries as she rips her posters (all of him in a Madrid uniform, not as Becks the celebrity, by the way) off the wall. People try and stop his car from leaving for the airport. A boy scrawls Beckham underneath the word "Stop" on a stop sign.

Every image vastly different, but all communicating the same thing, don't go. Don't leave us for America. You're too important, they won't appreciate you like we do.

Stop Beckham.

It's a request and a demand and a call to action. It's the kind of feeling people get when something big is happening, but they know that no one can stop it, even if the very people most likely to be affected can't see it.

And all this takes place as a cover of the Beatles--the original British invasion--plays in the background.

The 30 second spot ends with Beckham looking up from tying his shoes in the tunnel as he hears the cheers from the *American* stadium outside and it ends with a shot of him standing up and slowly filling out the TV screen so that all we can see is the soon to be ubiquitous long sleeved jersey emblazoned, simply, Beckham.

Number 23.

And then he walks down the tunnel.

Hello, America.