LA Galaxy coach Bruce Arena has explained why David Beckham will miss today's game against Columbus Crew. "He's missed 18-20 games for us, so it's not the end of the world," Arena said Friday of Beckham, who has played in eight games (all starts) and has two goals and three assists. "It was a 50-50 thing, and we decided to use better judgement and give him this game off.

"It's not the end of the world. This is part of it ... teams miss players throughout the season. We've learned to play a lot of games without him, and we'll play another one."