CARSON, Calif. – David Beckham went 45 minutes for the LA Galaxy against Real Madrid on Thursday night, but the head coach for the Spanish giants Jose Mourinho felt that Beckham should have been thousands of miles away with the Great Britain Olympic team.
After helping London win the bid to host the 2012 Olympics, Beckham was not selected to the Great Britain team by manager Stuart Pearce in a move that drew considerable hostility from the British media and public.
Although Beckham played a key role in the Opening Ceremonies and is expected to attend the closing events next week, Mourinho—who also played a role in London’s winning bid—was shocked by his exclusion from Team GB.
“I don’t understand and I know because I was also inside of that project. If now the Olympic Games are in London and because of him, because of Seb Coe and other people, but he was the most important face of that project. I don’t understand why he is not playing there. I can not understand," Mourinho said during the postgame press conference. "I think you have a group of 18 players, you have football qualities to give, human qualities to give and I think that he is one of the best soccer professionals to express what is the ideal of Pierre de Coubertin [the founder of the modern Olympics]. I’m so sorry that he is not there. For me, I was also participating in the London project and I don’t understand why such a big personality in that project is now playing in this match when he should be in London.”
