LA Galaxy's Latino fans ready to fete Beckham

By Dana Ford

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Galaxy boasts a legion of Latino fans, wowed by generations of high-profile Latin American players from Pele to Diego Maradona to Hugo Sanchez.

But those fans appear ready to embrace someone from outside their barrio -- David Beckham, the golden boy of English and European football who arrives in L.A. this week for his official Galaxy presentation.

"Beckham's awesome. I can't wait for him to come," Javier Vallejo, 25, told Reuters outside the Galaxy's home stadium in Carson, California before the Major League Soccer (MLS) game against the Kansas City Wizards.

The Los Angeles population is roughly one-half Hispanic, thanks to waves of migrants mostly from Mexico and Central America. The city's parks are filled on weekends with organised games and players sporting jerseys from their home countries.

For Vallejo, a football coach, the quality of a player matters more than where he is from.

"I just want to watch soccer," said Vallejo, whose parents moved to the United States from Guatemala and Ecuador. "And I think Beckham can bring good soccer."

Galaxy club president Alexi Lalas, who estimates the Hispanic element of the team's fan base to be around 50 percent, agreed.

"David Beckham, unlike any other player, transcends all of these boundaries," he told Reuters.