Beckham fires back

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) — David Beckham said Los Angeles Galaxy teammate Landon Donovan was “unprofessional” for speaking out without confronting him first.

Beckham, who was making his first public appearance in Southern California since returning from his five-month loan with Italian club AC Milan, said he had not spoken to Donovan, who called him a bad captain and portrayed him as stingy in an upcoming book “The Beckham Experiment,” written by Grant Wahl.

“It’s unprofessional in my eyes. In every soccer player’s eyes throughout the world it would be unprofessional to speak out about a teammate especially in the press and not to your face,” Beckham said.

“But I’m going to turn it on a positive spin because that’s what this needs. But in 17 years, I have played with the biggest teams in the world and the biggest players and not once have I been criticized for my professionalism. It’s important to get this cleared up and I will be speaking to Landon either this evening or over the next couple of days.”

The Galaxy played Chivas USA on Saturday, with Beckham returning to his first practice on Monday.

And even though the level of play in MLS isn’t as high as in Italy’s top league the forward thinks the adjustment will be just fine.

“It’s not going to be difficult because we’ve got talent on our team. It’s just about confidence. It will be different coming back, but I don’t see any problems.”