BECKS TO FRONT-Simon Veness compares big games in MLS and EPL

Small draw: Beckham and Henry go head-to-head in the weekend's 1-1 draw

Footy fans in the US were treated to a rare double act of transatlantic talent last weekend when David Beckham, Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard were all firmly in the TV spotlight.

It may come as a surprise to Premier League followers in the UK to know Manchester United, Chelsea, et al, have a keen and growing profile on this side of the pond, with the likes of ESPN and Sports Illustrated giving them headline status at various times.

Like last Sunday, when the Prem's Big Two went head-to-head with the title at stake and both outlets followed the game in minute detail, with live blogs, reports and opinion on all the action as it happened.

(It may also come as a surprise to skysports.com readers to find this here; the View from America column usually lurks in dark corners, waiting to ambush unsuspecting passers-by, speculating on the delights of the NFL, the NBA and, occasionally, mainstream sports like golf. But the NFL is currently a sporting wasteland, bereft of meaningful life, and Tiger Woods hasn't played recently, hence I needed to find pastures new this week).

Awareness

Admittedly, the Old Trafford showdown was shown live only on Fox Soccer Channel, which is still just a minor channel on the cable and satellite networks (I have to pay an additional $19.99 'finder's fee' just to locate the sports 'package' that it is part of!), but I was able to watch West Ham-Blackburn and Liverpool-Fulham live on ESPN in the last few days.

It is all part of a growing 'Europeanisation' of the mainstream sports channels' approach over here, with an increasing awareness that the 'World Series' and 'World champions' don't reside purely in Uncle Sam's back yard.

Simon Veness 
Quotes of the week

It is all part of a growing 'Europeanisation' of the mainstream sports channels' approach over here, with an increasing awareness that the 'World Series' and 'World champions' don't reside purely in Uncle Sam's back yard.

Which all helps to underline why, when we had the big MLS clash of the season - LA Galaxy v New York Red Bulls, and Beckham v Henry - the domestic league came out an extremely poor second to the EPL (as they term it here) in the overall scheme of things.

That's not to say the action was in any way second-class or sub-standard; indeed, the first half was absolutely riveting, with the two former Premiership and La Liga superstars turning back the clock with a vintage display of soccer skills, the Frenchman in terms of his predatory goal skills and work rate and the former England captain in terms of his pin-point passing and work rate.

In fact, it's tempting to add that, had Arsene Wenger been watching the fare from The Home Depot Center (yes, that IS a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? We also have Pizza Hut Park, Red Bull Arena and Dick's Sporting Goods Park - kind of makes you nostalgic for The Reebok and Britannia Stadium), he might well have rued letting Henry return to the US after his training stint with the Gunners in January. I can well imagine legions of Gooners thinking the French hitman would still be preferable to any of supposed 'strikers' Nicklas Bendtner, Andrey Arshavin or Marouane Chamakh any day of the week.

As a quick aside, having caught most of the West Ham-Blackburn relegation scrap on Saturday while taking a break from the non-stop baseball, basketball and ice-hockey at this time of year, I would like to offer the title of Most Past-It Player Of The Year, from what I saw, to Robbie Keane. How anyone could turn in such a listless, aimless and pointless performance in such a vital game, even as a sub, is hard to credit from this distance (am I wrong, Hammers fans?).

Nothing

So, yes, the quality of the Galaxy-Red Bulls clash was good enough to grace any game that didn't have the names Manchester United or Barcelona attached to it. The fact it finished 1-1 was primarily due to some outstanding goalkeeping and - here's one for Frank Lampard and England fans - the ongoing lack of goal-line technology as Landon Donovan's first-half shot was hacked off the line (or, more likely, from just behind the line).

And yet, given that this was THE big match-up of the first half of the MLS season; that Beckham and Henry were going head-to-head for the first time since their Champions League encounters for Arsenal and Real Madrid in 2006; that it was live on ESPN (albeit at the absurd kick-off time of 11.15pm here on the East Coast); and that these are still really the only two main non-American stars in the league, you could be forgiven for thinking the game hadn't been played at all.

When it came to major headlines anywhere (apart from the Fox Soccer Channel, which doesn't count), there was nothing, nada, nought, zero, zilch. Not a line to suggest a major game had happened in one of America's 'major' sporting leagues in the mainstream media.

And yet there was the United-Chelsea game all over the place, even drawing comments on MSNBC (a heavyweight new channel) on Monday morning as Alex Ferguson's triumphant visage made for resonant viewing (and reading).

Despise

It doesn't help the MLS cause that their two flagship teams exist in cities - Los Angeles and New York - where the local media despise the round-ball version of football.

In LA, they live for the Lakers and basketball (just remind us how that worked out, by the way? What? Kobe Bryant and Co aren't on the way to a title 'three-peat'? They just got swept by Dallas (Surely, that can't be so?) while New York thrives on baseball and gridiron and dreams about a championship comeback from the Knicks in basketball (a very short-lived dream this year).

In Los Angeles, the two big newspapers could hardly be bothered with any worthwhile preview, while the actual match report on the LA times was buried beneath the announcement of the US squad for the women's World Cup and, you guessed it, the result of the Old Trafford encounter. There was a 12-word quote from Beckham in the Times report and, er, that was it.

So, while the product may certainly be improving, MLS continues to have a major media credibility problem. Not so the Premiership, or the EPL, as we have to call it.

And, with the Champions League final live on the mainstream Fox channels on May 28, you have to think it's not coming out of the shadows anytime soon.

In the meantime, I will return to my world of NBA, NHL, MLB and NFL and the other alphabet soup of sport in America. It is a peculiar world of larger-than-life characters, outrageous action and unrelenting aggression, but it keeps me amused and the current ice-hockey play-offs in particular are likely to register on the Richter Scale if they get any more heated.

Pop over and see me some time. The View From America column needs a few friends (a bit like Robbie Keane - oops, there I go again...).