After a three week-long soap opera in which David Beckham has limped from coast to coast in America, the former England captain made his entry as a 72nd-minute substitute in the Los Angeles Galaxy's 1-0 MLS loss to DC United on Thursday.
The fourth-highest MLS crowd in history, 46,686 took in the event, not the first sellout crowd to turn up in hope of seeing Beckham play a competitive game for Los Angeles, but the first to actually witness it.
After he spent Sunday's game in Toronto on the bench in street clothes, Beckham was named as a substitute for this game.
But he spent the first half as a frustrated spectator as the Galaxy comprehensively were outplayed by United.
The atmosphere was not dampened by Beckham's absence from the field, and the rabid Screaming Eagles roared their approval from the stands as United dominated in the early stages.
United's front three of Guy-Roland Kpene, Luciano Emilio and Joshua Gros were running the Galaxy's defense ragged, and they had several good chances to score before Emilio lit up the stadium in the 27th minute with an electrifying goal.
Marc Burch's pass split the defence perfectly before Emilio smashed a shot that was too hot to handle for goalkeeper Joe Cannon.
United were in complete control, and maybe Beckham had seen enough as he began to warm up on the touchline, provoking a mix of cheers and jeers from the crowd.
The sight of Beckham doing his warmups also brought a smile from watching England manager Steve McClaren, picked out by the cameras as he viewed on from a luxury suite.
McClaren was in town to talk to the midfielder about his chances of playing for his country in the European qualifiers this autumn, and he will have been encouraged by the freedom with which Beckham moved through his workout.
However, the stretches on the sidelines were doing nothing to help the Galaxy on the field, and the half ended with Bobby Boswell passing up another great chance for United.
The Galaxy began the second half in more encouraging fashion as Landon Donovan went close with an early chance, but Beckham only intensified his warmups.
He looked ready to come on before rain hit RFK Stadium, with a heavy storm passing over and softening up the field considerably.
Jaime Moreno then went inches away from scoring a goal that would have made him MLS' all-time leading scorer with 109 goals, and it was obvious the Galaxy still needed help.
Their evening then got much worse when Kyle Martino was shown a straight red card for a poor tackle on Fred.
That was Beckham's cue, and within minutes, he was stood on the touchline waiting to come on to a deafening noise and the flash of hundreds of cameras.
Beckham went straight in to the centre of midfield and immediately was biting into tackles as he ran back to help the Galaxy defend.
They stayed on the back-foot as Emilio saw a close-range effort deflected just wide of the post with United pushing for a second.
When Beckham did get a chance to orchestrate an attack, he looked cool and composed on the ball, and he was narrowly off mark with a long range ball into the box looking for the head of Edson Buddle.
In the 85th minute, he got to show off his dead-ball abilities, but a trademark free kick from the left wing was headed over by Carlos Pavon.
The Galaxy's last chance at an equaliser disappeared moments later, when Troy Perkins beat Donovan to the chase on a through ball from Beckham, leaving the Englishman to taste bitter defeat.
