Real Madrid’s Visit Might Set Stage for Others

On Monday, a skinny youngster with a double-barreled name and soccer talent in abundance made a move from one part of England to another.

Shaun Wright-Phillips, 23, swapped the pale blue of Manchester City for the deeper blue of Chelsea.

It cost the London club $36.8 million to acquire the elusive winger, who will be paid $120,000 a week to sit on the bench, half-hoping that the players ahead of him in the pecking order, Damien Duff and Arjen Robben, fall out of form or favor.

And why should anyone on this side of the Atlantic -- and in Los Angeles in particular -- care about Wright-Phillips’ sudden good fortune?

Because today English champion Chelsea travels to the United States to play three games: against AC Milan at Foxboro, Mass., on Sunday; against Major League Soccer champion D.C. United in Washington on July 28; and against AC Milan at Giants Stadium on July 31.

Wright-Phillips probably will make his Chelsea debut in one of those matches.

And this time next year it could well be Chelsea playing the Galaxy at a sold-out Home Depot Center, just as Real Madrid did Monday night.

Ever since Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich bought the club two years ago, Chelsea has been accorded the sort of worldwide attention usually reserved for the likes of Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Boca Juniors.

One reason for that is the team’s outspoken and hugely successful Portuguese coach, Jose Mourinho.

Another, more compelling reason is that Abramovich has splashed nearly half a billion dollars on players since taking over. He also lured Peter Kenyon from Manchester United and installed him as the team’s chief executive.

Chelsea is now a major player on the world stage, and that intrigues Tim Leiweke, president and chief executive of Anschutz Entertainment Group.

Asked the other day how MLS and its offshoot, Soccer United Marketing (SUM), could provide an encore for Real Madrid’s visit, Leiweke did not hesitate.

“We’re trying to make sure Chelsea’s experience [in the U.S.] is good,” he said. “I love Peter Kenyon. I think he’s doing a phenomenal job with that club. I think they are going to be a super brand in the world. So that’s a priority.”

Reading between the lines, Chelsea could well be coming to town next summer. Real Madrid’s one-week, two-game visit is just a taste of things to come.

“I think that every club in the world will look at ... what goes on here Monday night,” Leiweke said, “and they’re suddenly going to say, ‘You know what, we want to do that and that’s where we want to do it, because that [U.S.] marketplace is critical to our branding and to the 280 million people in that country that we want to try to unlock.”

Bringing the super clubs of the world to the U.S. on an annual basis not only helps MLS and AEG replenish their coffers, it is intended to raise the profile of MLS teams globally and raise the level of MLS play and of American players.

“I think what we’ve been emphasizing a lot over the last couple of years are three pillars: competition, entertainment and diversity,” Ivan Gazidis, president of SUM and deputy commissioner of MLS, said at a media round-table in Marina del Rey on Sunday.

“We spoke a little bit, jokingly, about when is the Michael Jordan of soccer going to come forward, and nobody can create that. But what you can do is create the right conditions for a player to develop to his maximum potential.

“What we’re trying to do, step by step, is put together conditions that make our game more competitive.

“That involves looking at the schedule. It involves looking at our playoff format, our competition format. It involves expanding our rosters so that there’s more competition, so that a player can’t rely on ... starting every game of the year, he’s got a young guy snapping at his heels.

”... Another area that we are trying to elevate is playing against the best teams in the world and learning from them.

“So it’s no coincidence that Real Madrid is playing against the Galaxy. It’s no coincidence that AC Milan is playing against the Chicago Fire, that Chelsea is playing against DC United and that Fulham is playing against our All-Stars.

“I think what you’ll see is more of that in the future.”

Emilio Butragueno, the former Spanish international striker who earned his master’s of business administration at UCLA and spent a summer observing American sports business methods while with the Dodgers, is Real Madrid’s vice president and sporting director.

The Spanish club already operates soccer camps in the U.S., and Butragueno did not dismiss the suggestion when asked whether the club might one day put a team in MLS as Chivas de Guadalajara has done.

“I think we have possibilities here in the future,” he said, “but we have to think about it.”

Real Madrid is like a spark. Its game against Chivas de Guadalajara drew an announced 54,432 to Chicago’s Soldier Field on Saturday, and, as David Beckham pointed out, “the atmosphere was electric.”

Capturing and keeping that electricity is what MLS is trying to accomplish.

And that’s why Shaun Wright-Phillips’ move Monday is as noteworthy in Los Angeles as it is in Manchester and London.