A LITTLE HELP HERE, PLEASE GALAXY, MLS DROPPING THE BALL ASSISTING BECKHAM.

Byline: BILLY WITZ

The arrival of David Beckham presented Major League Soccer with the rarest of opportunities -- a second chance to make a first impression, a platform from which to show the American sporting public that it was ready for prime time.

A month into Beckham's arrival, the Galaxy, the league and its partners have played that opportunity the way Kyle Veris played a long, looping ball that started the Galaxy on its way to a 3-0 defeat Thursday night to Chivas USA -- off the side of his foot.

On and off the field, there has been little indication anyone associated with ushering in the Beckham Era has been well prepared for it.

The latest came Thursday when Beckham, fresh off playing 90minutes for England the day before, flew back to Los Angeles and was on the field from start to finish against Chivas.

By the end of his third full game in six days -- in New York, London and Los Angeles -- Beckham hobbled and winced on a still-healing left ankle that was so sore he directed Carlos Pavon in the final minutes to step into what is usually his exclusive domain and take a cornerkick.

Galaxy coach Frank Yallop said afterward he felt sorry for Beckham and regretted playing him, even as he indicated that the decision to play belonged to Beckham.

Which begs the question: Just who's in charge here?

As if to not tempt either player or coach, the club announced Friday that Beckham would not travel with the team to Colorado for its game Sunday.

From the moment the Galaxy signed Beckham to a five-year, $32.5 million contract in January, the strategy appears to have been three-pronged: plaster Beckham's face everywhere, sell as many tickets (and jerseys) as possible, and figure everything else out on the fly.

Consider the incoherent approach to dealing with Beckham's injured ankle -- let's think short-term, then long-term; hey, what day is it?

Or the reconstruction of the team.

Beset by injuries and a slow start, Galaxy president Alexi Lalas blew up the roster in June, adding five new players -- Pavon, Chris Klein, Edson Buddle, Abel Xavier and the injured Kelly Gray -- who are starters along with Beckham.

The end result has been a team whose performance -- the Galaxy is 3-9-5, the league's second-worst mark -- has rarely equaled the sum of its parts. Or as goalkeeper Joe Cannon said after Thursday's loss: "We've got good individuals, but we don't have a good team."

Chivas midfielder Jesse Marsch has watched the Galaxy from down the hall, and Thursday he saw a team whose players largely sat back and waited for the delivery of "a magic ball" from Beckham.

"It just seems like they lack a little bit of understanding with each other in terms of what it should look like on the field and how to play with each other," Marsch said. "That's going to happen when you're going to make so many changes. They've had so many changes this year it's been hard for them to find the chemistry."

As Lalas plied his team with more experience, it also got older and slower -- a combination that isn't well suited to a current stretch of 11games in 36 days.

That heavy load, which has included three games on artificial turf, has undoubtedly contributed to the continuing wave of injuries.

The schedule, of course, isn't the Galaxy's doing. The back-loaded schedule is a product of MLS executives' desire to bring Beckham to each of the league's other 11 markets. However, the league didn't do this in a vacuum, collaborating with its television partners (ESPN, Fox Sports and Telefutura), major sponsors, and Galaxy parent company AEG -- all of whom were interested in maximizing their return on Beckham.

All those interests were conspicuously quiet about the status of Beckham's ankle, which he injured June 9 while playing for England, then took three injections a week later to play in Real Madrid's LaLiga-clinching win.

ESPN leaned on Beckham to play in an exhibition against Chelsea, which aggravated the injury. This left Beckham, the Galaxy, MLS commissioner Don Garber and team executives in Dallas, Toronto and NewEngland to answer questions from ticket holders -- who often paid a premium -- about why he wasn't playing. Now, they'll get to reprise those answers in Colorado.

When Beckham has gotten on the field, he has often delivered. His first goal, in the SuperLiga semifinal, was one of his trademark bending free kicks, on which he sent the goalkeeper one way and the ball the other.

The only network to show it live was the Spanish-language Telefutura.

When Beckham went to NewYork last week, helping draw more than 65,000 fans -- the largest pro soccer crowd in the United States in more than 25 years -- Beckham thrilled the crowd with a pair of dead-ball kicks that were headed into the goal, and the teams combined for nine goals in a match that couldn't have been a better advertisement for MLS.

Except not many saw it -- or understood it.

The league had awarded Beckham's visit to the nation's media capital to Fox Sports Espanol and Fox Soccer Network, a pair of obscure cable channels.

A similarly wasted opportunity awaits next week when Beckham will play in the SuperLiga final against Pachuca, the best club in Mexico, in a half-empty stadium after the Galaxy agreed to sell only 12,500 tickets so it wouldn't disrupt students during the firstweek of classes at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

It might be interesting to see what Beckham thinks of all this, but he hasn't spoke to the American media in a week. Near the end of Thursday's game, a Galaxy official announced in the press box that Beckham wouldn't be talking afterward, never mind what MLS' interview policy is.

Pressed for an explanation, and told it would be nice to hear from Beckham given his return from England and his involvement in the scrum that was the key moment in the game, the official was unmoved.

He thought the focus of the stories should have been the two goals scored by Chivas' Maykel Galindo.

Which pretty much explains the problem right there.

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(1 -- 3 -- color) Landon Donovan, above, and GM Alexi Lalas have watched the Galaxy struggle, even with David Beckham in the mix.

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