Last week it seemed he would be leaving current club Valencia to join the increasingly expensive Real Madrid side, but Barcelona, Chelsea and Manchester City are all still in the hunt and Villa will make no decisions until the Confederations Cup is over
Given the dismal performance of the US team so far in the competition it may be that Egypt, even without their star striker Mohamed Zidan, felt they had the semi final place in the bag already.
Hard numbers to back the claims about Beckham's merchandising moxy. But the soccer star will have to shift an awful lot of LA Galaxy shirts to repay its investment in him.