EAST RUTHERFORD -- Odell Beckham Jr. will be keeping an eye on the World Cup, and not only because he's a huge soccer fan.
When the United States kicks off their run against Ghana tonight, it could be a glimpse of what could have been for the Giants first-round draft pick. Beckham, who was also an accomplished track runner and soccer player, was asked to try out for the US Men's National Team when he was a teenager.
"I played seriously until I was about 13 or 14 then the(US) national team wanted me to try out for it," Beckham said. "It's just so much for a young kid to have to decide that. You'd have to leave your family. But I always played in the premiere leagues. I was 11 playing U-14, stuff like that. I was always playing up.
"My coaches were from Trinidad and they had connections. They wanted to put me in touch with those guys and try out and do whatever it was."
Beckham is obviously content with the choice he made -- he decided to ditch soccer in high school to become a more serious runner and football player -- but that doesn't mean he hasn't thought about how things would have turned out if he accepted the invitation.
"All the time, all the time," he said. "Soccer was my first love so whenever I think back on those moments, I think of what could have been. If it wasn't in God's plans, it wasn't in God's plans."
Beckham is hoping to be cleared for the start of tomorrow's mandatory mini camp after sitting out a large part of OTA's with tightness in his hamstring. Beckham called the measure purely precautionary and expected to be cleared for practice last Thursday.
In the meantime, he's buried in the new playbook, and maybe a little bit of the World Cup.
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