The day after...

So the Spanish have won, making England the biggest underachievers once again, and I'm hoarse of throat from singing the Torres Kop song (well, just the chorus, really) far too much at Kinsale yesterday. Apologies to anyone who now has that refrain permanently embedded in their cerebral cortex.

And so we find ourselves in that frightening void, that scary abyss where championships end and new seasons struggle to kick into life.

What on earth will we do with ourselves for the next month? Should we take up a hobby, like beekeeping, home brewing, or philately? (Actually, the home brewing doesn't sound like such a bad idea)

Or should we look to the MLS for our fix, struggling to find a vein in which to mainline the excitement?

If more matches end up with Beckham and Donovan looking bruised, battered and humiliated, then I might well try.

It's always fun to see Beckham suffer. Really, it is. It ranks high on the list of casual pleasures, to see the tattooed twit from Leytonstone looking well and truly bemused and frustrated. Yesterday was no different; in a smart bit of promotion by ESPN, they put the MLS's centerpiece on TV right before the Spain/Germany match, and while it wasn't quite what they'd hoped for, I certainly enjoyed it.

DC United ran 'em ragged, and I lost track of the number of closeups Beckham received in the game's dying minutes. Each shot seemed to be searching for signs of life or fear in Beckham's eyes, perhaps a flicker of realization that while his bank account is neatly padded (and, ahem, his underpants too), his cultural account might be dangerously close to overdrawn. (I should write for the AP with lines like that)

Simply put, he was an island, a one-man island lost amid a sea of black shirts. No free-kicks just outside the box with which he could drag his team back into contention, and the awful defending from Xavier and friends didn't help either.

Mannix's point about the league needing more Beckhams was, as was his entire article, horribly misguided, because one player can't make that much difference. Just ask Gerrard in that strange pre-Torres year, where teammates looked to him and him alone for inspiration and crucial late goals.

I enjoyed the match greatly, even if the combined forces of advertising and corporate synergy didn't.

I hope to see more shellackings like this before the MLS realizes their transfer monies might be better spent elsewhere.

Here's the match highlights, and some thoughts from one of the better US soccer writers, Steven Goff.