Beckham in Australia

An 80000-plus sell-out at the Olympic stadium

The David Beckham bandwagon swept into town this week and there's no doubting he's probably worth all the money that the LA Galaxy are paying him due to the extra revenue he's clearly bringing to the club. On top of all his sponsor stuff, the Galaxy played Sydney FC in a friendly last night at the Olympic stadium. Sydney usually get maybe 15000 to a game on a good day but over 80000 turned up yesterday, paying a lot more than you'd usually do to see the local A-League rubbish. I was among them.

Beckham prepares to take a corner

Ruud prowls his technical area

The standard of football was very poor and the refereeing was even worse but there were 8 goals and in the end Sydney ran out undeserving 5-3 winners. Beckham himself was head and shoulders above anyone else on the pitch but unfortunately his team-mates just aren't good enough to keep up with him so he's not as influential as he could be. Ruud Gullit is the new Galaxy coach and he was playing Beckham in a rather withdrawn holding central midfield role which is not maybe where I'd play him but then I'm not a professional footie manager.

Beckham scores a stunning trademark free-kick into the top left corner

At least Becks did score one of his amazing free-kicks and I guess thats what we all went there to see. A touch of class. Saying that, it wasn't exactly the Premiership!

You've got to love the big screen