David Beckham, fatigued after playing three games in six days, has been ruled out of Los Angeles Galaxy's Major League Soccer (MLS) match against Colorado Rapids on Sunday. The England midfielder has been hampered by a left ankle injury for the last two months and limped off the pitch after the Galaxy's 0-3 MLS defeat by Chivas USA on Thursday. "While it's regrettable that he will not get the opportunity to play in Colorado this season, we have to focus on healing David's injury," Galaxy president and general manager Alexi Lalas said in a statement on Friday. "He will rest this weekend in LA while preparing for our SuperLiga final match on Wednesday." The Galaxy, while struggling for form in the MLS, will host Mexican league champions Pachuca at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California on Wednesday in the inaugural SuperLiga final. "I'd love to be on the pitch with my team this Sunday but our training staff has advised me that it would be detrimental to not only my health for this game but for the rest of the season," Beckham, 32, said. "I look forward to making it out to Colorado for our next scheduled match there."
The globe-trotting Beckham, signed by the Galaxy from Real Madrid on a $32.5 million five-year deal, competed in two matches in two continents on successive days this week. A day after playing the full 90 minutes for England in a 2-1 friendly defeat by Germany in London, Beckham was on the pitch throughout as the Galaxy slipped to their ninth defeat in 17 MLS games against Chivas on Thursday. Galaxy coach Frank Yallop said he had erred in leaving Beckham on for the entire match. "It wasn't the intention to play him at all but he came in and said that he felt okay," Yallop told reporters. "And obviously with our situation in the league we need points." "I didn't want to leave him on but in the end, at 2-0, he tried and all it needed was may be one set piece or one bit of magic by David." "Right at the end he looked hobbled. I used him tonight and I shouldn't have done that. You can still tell now that he is sore, he's still not 100 percent." Beckham twisted his ankle playing for his country against Estonia in a Euro 2008 qualifying match in June and aggravated it in his final appearance for Real 11 days later when his former team clinched the Spanish league title.
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