David Beckham will be playing his first game since returning from AC Milan last season. Despite the fact that the season started in March, Beckham has been absent to do photo shoots, practice with Team England and finish the season with AC Milan.

David Beckham back in LA Galaxy uniform for July 16th game against New York Red Bulls

Despite his absence, LA Galaxy has been on a winning streak thanks to lead scorer, Landon Donovan who has been carrying the captainless team. Beckham’s first game back will be played against the New York Red Bulls. The first time Beckham played in NY he was received by over 70,000 fans who came out to support the game. Though record breaking at the time, they expect a large crowd now that they know that Beckham is back in the game.

Despite my bitching, it’s good to see Beckham back.

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David Beckham has been under fire from a comment made by LA Galaxy co-player Landon Donovan. Donovan was quoted by author Grant Wahl in his new book The Beckham Experiment for saying some accusatory remarks.

Landon Donovan responds to questions about comments made about Beckham on July 13, 2009.

According to Wahl, Donovan said that Beckham was a poor captain and teammate. Reporters have been wanting to know what was said during a meeting between the two and coach behind closed doors. That my friends will probably remain a secret, though everyone likes a good gossip.

The Beckham Experiment was released in stores today and it promises to cause more of a stir than the Landon controversy.

You can get the book The Beckham Experiment for $14.99 at my aStore.

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If Zidane is in town I suppose it would be impolite not to say hi to other international soccer stars. When Zinedine Zidane was in Canada with his family for the Charity games in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, he took a quick jet down to Los Angeles to meet up with David and Victoria Beckham.

Zidane and Beckham families meet up at LA Galaxy game - July 11, 2009

It looked like a fun family outing as both families have similar aged kids. They were seen at the stadium for a game between Chivas and the LA Galaxy on July 11, 2009.

Left to right: Veronique Zidane, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Cruz Beckham, Brooklyn Beckham, Victoria Beckham.

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Zinedine Zidane has been in Canada for the past few weeks now traveling from Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. His charity matches helped raise money for UNICEF and other causes.

Zinedine Zidane at Montreal Charity Match

His match in Montreal drew the largest crowd of over 15,000 people with Toronto trailing at 10,000 and ended with Vancouver in a shameful 4,000. The match in Vancouver however was a tough one as Zidane was forced to recover from an injury he sustained at the Canada fireworks display. Zidane decided to postpone the game that was played yesterday, however none of the other international soccer stars Zidane toured with showed up. To make matters worse the game venue had to be changed to Swangard Stadium as the original B.C. Place was unavailable. Though plagued with difficulty Zidane made it work as he played both sides.

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Are the official FIFA World Cup rules flawed? A mathematician from Victoria, Canada seems to believe so. The professor believes that he has found a potential problem in the way the rules are laid for international soccer. He wants FIFA to acknowledge the problem an amend the rules accordingly.

Leopard Zakumi - FIFA South Africa World Cup Mascot

Aaron Williams believes that two different teams could make an argument for a second-place when a theoretical three-way tie occurs.

“In a particular round-robin situation, three teams could argue they finished in the top-two spots based on the rules as they’re written.”

Not to be a downer but who cares about the second place winner. Do countries celebrate second and third place winners? Cause last I heard the point of the World Cup is to win the World Cup. Sounds to me like Williams is trying to stir up trouble where there isn’t any so that he can be recognized as a great mathematician.

Read the complete article at the National Post.

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It was a proud moment for Canadian soccer fans when they took the Group A lead after a 2:2 tie with Costa Rica July 10th, 2009. The CONCACAF Gold Cup match bests the soccer skills of North and Central American Countries (basically N.America).

The Canadian national team will not head to Philidelphia where they will play in the Gold Cup quarter-finals that will take place next week. The CONCACAF Gold Cup match is a great series that will help prepare Canada for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Let’s hope that this victory in the Gold Cup series is a good sign for what we could expect to see there. Good luck Canada!

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The Montreal Impact (who are not apart of the MLS yet) played against the Syrian national soccer team on Wednesday and defeated them 2-1. Felix Brilliant managed to secure the winning goal by head butting it into the corner net.

Montreal Impact

Montreal has shown themselves to be an impressive team during the last few years. Yet they always seem to be overlooked when it comes time to add more teams to the MLS roster. They were overlooked last year when the bid when to the Vancouver Whitecaps. It was assumed that MLS officials believed Vancouver was better known internationally and had better facilities since they are hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics.

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Would you watch a soccer game if all of the players were robots? Japanese robotics engineers seem to believe so. Hagime Sakamoto seems to believe so.

The Hajime 33 Soccer Robot

He has created what he calls the Hagime robot (creative) that is intended to be used at the RoboCup Japan Open robot soccer tournament in Osaka, Japan. The tournament brings together scientists from around the world who are using it as a platform for creating and testing new technologies.

The Japanese fascination of robots is complex but what I can say is that if this tournament really takes off it might prove to be less expensive than paying exuberant amounts of cash to star players. Robots might prove to be more entertaining than watching real people making mistakes and faking injuries.

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Cristiano Ronaldo received a warm welcome to a crowd of over 75,000 fans in Madrid, Spain - July 6th, 2009. Ronaldo was traded from Manchester United to Real Madrid in a deal worth €13 million per season. It was speculated that he had been wanting to be traded for a long time now. I guess he just wanted to be somewhere that had better weather.

The crowd at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium cheered when he received his #9 jersey from club president Florentino Pérez.

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Ronaldinho may be slowing down as a soccer player but this star still retains one of the industries best gross salary. His reported $33 million paycheck with AC Milan earned him a spot on the Forbes Magazines: The Best Paid Celebs Under 30 list.

Milan's Ronaldinho shown in action during the UEFA-Cup round of 32 match Werder Bremen vs AC Milan at Weser stadium in Bremen, Germany, 18 February 2009.

At just 29 years old he is one of highest paid celebrities under 30 in the world. Other celebs who beat him salary-wise this year were tennis player Roger Federer, Britney Spears, LeBron James, F1 racer Kimi Raikkonen, and Beyonce Knowles. That basically makes Ronaldinho the fourth highest paid athlete under 30 or the highest paid soccer player under 30. No matter how you look at it it’s still impressive.

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