Galaxy may have one fewer star

David Beckham is nursing an ankle injury that might delay his U.S. debut.

LONDON (AP) — After winning a Spanish League title for the first time, David Beckham hobbles toward Major League Soccer hoping to bring similar success to the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Someone should tell him it won’t be that easy.

Nursing an ankle injury, Beckham sat on the bench watching his Real Madrid teammates turn around a deficit to beat Mallorca 3-1 Sunday for the club’s 30th league title. It was his last game after four frustrating years with the Spanish club.

Don’t expect him to bring immediate MLS success to the Galaxy.

While Beckham was still celebrating in Madrid, Los Angeles ended a five-game winless run with a 3-2 victory over last place Real Salt Lake. That at least put the Galaxy three points ahead of Salt Lake, which is last in the Western Conference and hasn’t won in 15 games.

It was only the second victory of the season for the Galaxy (2-4-3), playing without Landon Donovan, with the U.S. national team at the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

“We have a lot of work to do in certain areas,” coach Frank Yallop said. “I’m happy all around but now we need to regroup and get ready for our game next Saturday. It’s nice to have a smile on my face for a change.”

Beckham will have a scan on his injured left ankle to determine exactly what’s wrong with it. He is due to join the Galaxy next month, but if there is a fracture or a ligament tear, he will be out for a long spell.

“I felt it snap again,” he said after the title-winning triumph at the Bernabeu Stadium. “There was a lot of pain.”

Injury

Beckham picked up the injury playing for England against Estonia June 6. Despite limping for much of the game, he set up two of England’s goals with trademark crosses in a 3-0 victory that revived its chances of reaching next year’s European Championship.

He then played through the injury in Real Madrid’s 2-2 draw with Real Zaragoza and it flared up again against Mallorca. When Beckham limped off in the 65th minute, it seemed like a throwback to his departure from the World Cup a year ago.

Struggling with knee and Achilles’ tendon injuries, Beckham trudged off early in the second half, shook the hand of coach Sven-Goran Eriksson on the way to the bench and sat there to watch England lose to Portugal on penalty kicks in the quarterfinals.

With his team losing Sunday, Beckham took his seat on the bench. But the player who replaced him, Jose Antonio Reyes, scored twice as Madrid won the game 3-1 to capture the title.

Beckham had hit the crossbar and several times came close to scoring before he limped off. Although he wasn’t on the field to contribute to any of the goals, he can be satisfied that, without his contributions in the past two months, Madrid wouldn’t have made it to the top of the Spanish standings.