David Beckham vs. Thierry Henry: My first live football experience

I’d like to begin this by saying that Thierry Henry is, and always will be, my favorite player ever. I thought I’d just get that out of the way. Yes, I do realize it may seem a tad obvious considering that anyone who knows me would be aware that I’ve supported Arsenal for over a decade now, but his speed, accuracy and above all, the way he carried himself on the pitch whenever he came out onto the pitch at Highbury… let’s just say it captivated me as an 8 year old back in 2000, and (to some extent) it still does. He had this x-factor that almost no other player had, he was quite literally the coolest man on the pitch and his technique and skill held my attention like a man who’s holding on for his dear life from the top of a building would hold the ledge of a roof.

The average reaction after watching Thierry Henry's famous goal against Manchester United at home. This happened to Arsenal fans quite often, I must say.

That being said, when I moved to Los Angeles in August this year, the prospect of seeing LA Galaxy play was always on my mind. I know most people are going to assume that this is because of David Beckham, and I have another confession to make here – although I’ve never liked Manchester United for a variety of reasons that some of you might have noticed (if not, take a look at my older articles), David Beckham, I have to admit, at his prime was an amazing footballer; his free kicks were spectacular to watch, and he was the best crosser of the ball, hands down. This video on YouTube is the perfect example. (May I add I love the way the commentator yells, “Give that man a knighthood!” – priceless.)

But David Beckham is not the only reason going to an LA Galaxy game was one of the many things on my events-to-attend list. Landon Donovan, no matter what people say, is a great player that seems to unfortunately be under-rated at times by people, for reasons I cannot quite fathom. Robbie Keane signed for LA Galaxy this season – sure, I should hate him as an Arsenal fan, but heck, he’s a player that’s played in the Premier League for quite a while now – and at his prime, was a more-than-decent striker. I think that qualifies as grounds for him being a great player to watch as well.

And then there were other reasons as well – for example, the idea of supporting your “local” team. For years I’ve heard stories about how people who call themselves fans of a club that are of a town that they do not live in are plastic fans, and while I do not agree with this viewpoint, the idea of supporting your local club still seemed enticing. I’ll admit that I’ve never gone to a football game in Bangalore and I am completely clueless about the I-League, which is obviously something to not be proud of. And now that we’re past that, I can move on to the point I was eventually going to come to, the fact that because I’ve lived all my life in either Bangalore or Hong Kong (the latter as a kid, way before my football addiction grew into what it is now), LA Galaxy would officially be my first “local” team.

Go Galaxy! (what are you going to say now, Mr. You're-all-plastic-fans?)

So there, I’ve given you enough reasons to believe that I wanted to go to an LA Galaxy game at some point in the near future. When I landed in LA, I was fully aware of the fact that Thierry Henry played in the MLS (heck, he’s my favorite player), and therefore, I was also aware of the fact that New York had already played their game in LA, and I naively assumed that the next chance I’d get to see both these teams in action would be next season. What I didn’t know was that there was a chance that LA and NY would meet in the playoffs at the end of the season, two months after I moved in.

And meet in the playoffs they did.

We were lucky enough to get tickets a week before the game. I remember talking about how disappointed I was to miss Skrillex’s live concert in Los Angeles on the weekend before Halloween, which literally happened 5 minutes away from where I live. I also ended up missing the American Football game USC played against Stanford, which pissed me off even further – granted, most of you will assume that these games are stupid and silly and what not, but let me clarify this – when it comes to supporting your own university and you’re in a packed stadium with 90,000 people, it doesn’t really matter what the sport is – it’s really all about the atmosphere. But I digress.

I ended up hearing about the LA Galaxy – NY Red Bulls game on the weekend before the game – and my initial reaction was that of further agony and anger; I had an exam to write the day on Friday, the day after the game. While I initially believed that this would be yet another event that I’d have missed out on (I’ve missed a fair share of concerts as well), eventually as a group, some of my friends and I reached the conclusion that we had to, no matter what, watch this game – with Henry well out of his prime and Beckham’s future at the club uncertain, it just didn’t make sense for us to miss out on such a brilliant opportunity to watch some of our favorite players (no points for guessing who’s friends love Manchester United, and therefore, David Beckham) play live, just 30 minutes away from where we lived.

Travelling 14 miles to watch LA Galaxy play the NY Red Bulls? I'd travel 1400! (if I had enough money)

As any excited bunch of football fanatics would, we tried our best to acclimate to the situation. LA Galaxy had a 1-0 lead going into the second leg of the semi-final, thanks to a more-than-decent finish by Mike Magee (a player that we all knew vaguely before the game), so we watched highlights, we read match reports – heck, we Googled LA Galaxy fan chants, and ended up watching this.

That excitement grew with every passing hour and eventually by the time we got in our seats with the LA Galaxy home supporters (right behind one of the goalposts), we had already got our first glimpses at Thierry Henry, whose team was training on our side, and David Beckham who was on the opposite side of the pitch. It is hard to put into words the feeling you get when you see the player who tormented the world’s best set of defenders in his prime, right in front of you, living, breathing, and not on a screen.

The legend himself.

While the general consensus of people I know who are unaware of the MLS and its fans is that it does not compare in any way at all next to any of the European leagues. To some extent, I’d agree – the stadium seemed tiny, it was most definitely not packed, and besides certain sections of the stadium, people were quietly enjoying the match, eating their popcorn and what not. But we were (thankfully) in the LA Galaxy Supporters’ section, one of the few sections that was, for the lack of a better word, loud.

LA Galaxy has their own Supporters’ Club that handed out chants (which are also available online apparently), they were yelling their throats hoarse throughout the game, and it was brilliant to watch and be a part of. There are experiences that are difficult to explain, but experiences that you know you will not be forgetting any time soon, and I know that this watching this game was definitely one of those experiences.

The Angel City Brigade – support for football in the US is bigger than you might have thought it was.

Sure, Henry, Beckham and Keane were shadows of their former selves, but it was still in more ways than one surreal to see players that you watched in awe on TV thousands of miles away in the distance, play live in front of your very eyes. I could give you a match report but that would take away from the experience of the game itself, but anyways – Thierry Henry played an absolutely brilliant through ball to Luke Rodgers (the most hated man of the night for various reasons, booed every time he touched the ball) that had New York up 1-0 in the 4^th minute or so, Mike Magee scored late in the first half, heading the ball in from a David Beckham corner (quite obviously), and Beckham earned Galaxy a penalty that Donovan put away in the 75^th minute to eliminate New York, Galaxy winning the tie 2-1, and the semi-final 3-1. In the end, David Beckham managed to assist both goals, and Thierry Henry got 1 assist for Rodgers’ goals – leaving us happy with the fact that our favorite players were still involved, even if they were playing in a league that is considered to be nowhere near the level of European leagues in terms of quality.

Beckham and Henry were integral parts of their respective teams.

But all in all, it was a great game to watch, I loved every minute of it, and I’m most definitely going to go watch LA Galaxy play live again sometime soon.