The Seattle Sounders may not be joining Major League Soccer until next season, but the club today unveiled a big-name player and put the LA Galaxy on notice that they will no longer be the only MLS team to field a glamorous European male model.
Freddie Ljungberg, the Sweden international midfielder almost as famous for his salamander tattoo revealing Calvin Klein underwear ads (see: " Soccer's Pitchmen"), is joining the MLS newcomers on a two year contract worth a reported $5 million.
He becomes the club's fourth signing, and will be its designated player, which means only a portion of his salary will count against the Sounders' salary cap. The roster will be filled out by the MLS's expansion draft on Nov. 26.
Sounders co-owner and Hollywood director Joe Roth compared the signing of Ljungberg to the deal that took David Beckham to the LA Galaxy in the summer of 2007.
That may be stretching a point. The money isn't comparable, for a start (see " Bank It Like Beckham"); and while there wouldn't have been too much between the two midfielders as players in their pomp, no soccer player shifts merchandise like the Englishman (See " Becks and Bucks"). Yet Ljungberg is one of Beckham's few rivals in the metrosexual stakes.
The Swede, 31, arrives in America at a comparable point in his career, having spent, like Beckham, 10 years in the English Premier League. He has been without a club since leaving West Ham United in the summer. Previously he played for Arsenal for nine seasons, and was a member of the London club's team that went a record 49 consecutive league games without defeat. He scored 46 goals in 216 games while at Arsenal, though his career was interrupted by injuries and, in 2005, by blood poisoning from his tattoos.
Ljungberg played 75 times for Sweden, scoring 14 goals. He captained his national side from the 2006 World Cup finals until his retirement from international soccer after the 2008 European Championships, and was considered a star of a team that made the finals of the 2002 and 2006 World Cups and the 2004 and 2008 European Championships.
The speedy winger will cut a dash for the Sounders on and off the field. When at Arsenal he died his hair red and white to match the team's colors. Though he now sports a shaven head, last year he was voted the third best looking athlete by Sports illustrated, and the 17th best dressed player in the world by Esquire.
Source: forbes
Tags: Seattle Sounders Swedish Star Ljungberg MLS
