David Beckham has again defended the standard of Major League Soccer and insists people who dismiss the Los Angeles Galaxy as a "pub team" know nothing about the game in the United States.
But the 32-year-old has no doubts that the ambition and drive is there to make MLS one of the world's premier competitions and is adamant it is no "Mickey Mouse league".
Beckham told Observer Sport Monthly: "I could feel straight away how much (LA Galaxy management) wanted to do well as a team; how much they want to make MLS bigger, make it a league that's known around the world.
"In a different way, you could feel how much it hurt them when people who don't know anything about it were turning round and calling the Galaxy a pub team and calling the MLS a Mickey Mouse league.
"I don't know whether it's ignorance or snobbery or whether it's that the people saying these things have never played the game or watched it being played here."