Real Madrid coming to town

Funny how life and the sporting world work.

Seattle soccer fans who missed the chance to see perhaps the world's most famous athlete, David Beckham, in the summer of 2003 have a second chance.

Beckham and his teammates from Real Madrid, one of the globe's most popular soccer teams, are headed to Seattle for a friendly against Major League Soccer's D.C. United and its 17-year-old phenom, Freddy Adu.

The match is 8 p.m. Aug. 9 at Qwest Field, which will be outfitted with natural grass for the match. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Wednesday through Ticketmaster and are priced from $30 to $125.

The match essentially showcases the best club team in the U.S. against a world power.

Real Madrid features Brazilian stars Ronaldo, Emerson and Roberto Carlos, Spanish star Raul and Italy's Fabio Cannavaro, the captain of the World Cup champions. Emerson and Cannavaro signed with Real Madrid after their former team, Juventus of Italy, was banished to the second division of Italian pro soccer in the wake of a match-fixing scandal.

Then there is Beckham, who has crossed over into international celebrity status, especially after he married Victoria Adams, also known as Posh Spice. Beckham was sold to Real Madrid by Manchester United, a top club in England, about a month before Manchester played an exhibition match in Seattle in July 2003 that drew a sellout crowd of 66,722 to Qwest Field.

D.C. United, the top team in MLS, will travel from Washington, D.C., for the match. MLS chose the club as the team it wanted to play against Real Madrid, and the match fits into D.C. United's schedule, as the team has two weeks between regular-season games on Aug. 1 and Aug. 16.

D.C. United, which leads the MLS Eastern Division with a 13-1-6 record, is no slouch in international friendlies. The Black-and-Red is 15-5-3 in such games, including a win over Celtic FC, the Scottish champion, on July 12.

Featured players include Adu, regarded as a cornerstone in the future of the U.S. national team, and high-scoring forwards Alecko Eskandarian and Jaime Moreno.

Seattle is the first of two U.S. stops for Real Madrid, which will also play an exhibition against MLS's Real Salt Lake on Aug. 12.

According to reports in the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, Beckham and Ronaldo will be with their team in that town, which would only heighten expectations that the entire Real Madrid roster will appear in Seattle as well.

"Our message from Madrid was, 'We are Real Madrid. We are a team and our team travels as a group,' " said Adrian Hanauer, general manager of the Seattle Sounders, who are promoting the match. "Any playing-time issues are the coach's decision.

"But they're in preseason and they're trying to get sharp for the regular season. In previous trips they've all made it to the States or wherever they've toured, and those [star] players have played. It is absolutely going to be their first team."

The Sounders had to work out a deal with Sports Capital Partners LLC, a Connecticut-based company that owned the rights to Real Madrid's appearances in North America. SCP also owns Real Salt Lake.

The two sides finalized the deal Monday afternoon. Hanauer would not disclose financial details, but did say that a small group of individuals, including some part-owners of the Sounders, provided major backing to bring Real Madrid.

Hanauer, who has led an effort to bring an MLS team to Seattle in recent years, sees the match as a chance to show league officials that big-time soccer can be supported in the Seattle area.

The Sounders have already drawn two major international club teams to Seattle this summer — Club America of Mexico, a match that drew 10,200, and Cardiff City from Wales, which drew 4,052. But the expected attendance for the Real Madrid match — and the money involved — should dwarf the amounts spent and earned from those two games.

Hanauer said the Real Madrid match isn't likely to be shown on local television. The Sounders probably will move their Aug. 11 regular-season game against Virginia Beach to the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila so that workers have time to get Qwest Field ready for the Seahawks' exhibition opener on Aug. 12.

José Miguel Romero: 206-464-2409 or jromero@seattletimes.com