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Sometimes, we wonder what the meeting was like when this decision was made: "Let's see if we can shore up American interest in football by bringing over the one footballer most non-football watching Americans can recognize. It totally worked with Pelé!"

To be fair, it did work with Pelé to a certain extent. He drew huge crowds while playing in the U.S., became a household name and the first footballer most Americans could recognize. His last match with the New York Cosmos drew a crowd of 75,000. He ushered in a brief era of American football, bringing in European and South American megastars (albeit past their prime) to drum up interest, including Franz Beckenbauer and George Best.

But American soccer is a different game now than it was in the '70s when Pelé arrived and the nature of sports stardom is also different. It's more well-established—the teams have their own stadiums, ultras clubs and the league has a growing niche of fans and its own homegrown stars. Besides, it has been importing big names from Europe and South and Central America for a while now. The move felt like little more than a stunt for both sides, with Beckham and his PR team clearly getting the better end of the deal ($250 million potential earnings over a five-year deal).

For what it's worth, Beckham hasn't given much more to the L.A. Galaxy than a big name on the marquee. He's gone back to play in Europe twice on loan spells to AC Milan and drew the ire of Galaxy fans who called him a "fraud" and a "part-time player." He's rumored to return to Europe next season ahead of the 2012 Olympics, either to a Premiership club (Queens Park Rangers have expressed interest) or Paris Saint-Germain.

Ah, well. It seemed like a good idea at the time.