CHICAGO — In the summer of 2007, David Beckham arrived in Major League Soccer on a contract worth two-and-a-half times the $100 million market value of the franchise that signed him.

A decade after his move to the L.A. Galaxy, Beckham was in Chicago on Wednesday for the MLS all-star game, in which the home team lost on penalties to two-time reigning European champions Real Madrid.

Despite the all-stars’ defeat, the match was a powerful reminder of how much MLS has grown since Beckham arrived on these shores, hailed by many as the savior of American soccer.

This year’s all-star team was packed with European imports, including former World Player of the Year Ricardo Kaka and World Cup-winning Spanish striker David Villa. A crowd of more than 61,000 fans — the third-largest in the event’s history — filled Soldier Field, cheering wildly every time one of Real Madrid’s star players touched the ball.

In 2005, after several years of high-scoring East vs. West contests, the all-star game switched to its current format, in which the best of MLS face off against a visiting European team on a preseason tour of the United States.

But in four of the next five seasons, the all-stars faced teams with relatively small global fan bases and much less star power than the likes of Real Madrid and Manchester United.

In 2007, three weeks before his league debut, Beckham watched the all-stars play the Scottish team Celtic in front of fewer than 20,000 fans at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Colorado. The game ended in a 2-0 victory for Celtic.

Atlanta United defender Michael Parkhurst, who spent most of his career with the Columbus Crew, was the only player on this year’s all-star roster who also appeared in the 2007 edition of the game.

But the exhibition Parkhurst remembers best was his first all-star game in 2005 — a quiet affair featuring the midlevel English club Fulham.

“We came out, we had a game, some people showed up, it was kind of low-key,” he said during a locker room interview.

Now the game is a multiday extravaganza, featuring promotional events and beach soccer picnics across the host city.

“The whole experience has just gotten bigger,” Parkhurst said.

The additions to the all-star game include not just pregame festivities but weightier matters of league business and governance, said Jack Bell, a former soccer reporter for the New York Times who now runs the website Empire of Soccer.

“The activity around the game has matured,” Bell said. “Now, MLS has a board meeting around the all-star game. They bring in a vast number of potential sponsors. It’s become a happening for the league.”

At a meeting before this year’s game, the league’s Board of Governors voted to move forward with the final details of Beckham’s widely scrutinized proposal to start a new franchise in Miami.

As Beckham pitched his plan to MLS officials, tens of thousands of soccer fans — many of them dressed in identical black-and-white Real Madrid Cristiano Ronaldo jerseys — crowded into Soldier Field for an entertaining 1-1 draw between two teams with significant international talent.

Some surely came to see how promising Americans like Kellyn Acosta of FC Dallas would fare against high-profile European opposition.

But other people may have savored the midfield battle between Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos and his former Germany teammate Bastian Schweinsteiger, who now plays for the Chicago Fire.

Before Beckham’s big-money transfer across the Atlantic, Bell said, players of Schweinsteiger’s caliber hardly ever came to MLS.

“To me, Beckham effect goes way beyond the all-star game,” he said. “For whatever reason, his coming sort of gave MLS the seal of approval.”

One consequence of the league’s growing prestige is the number of American players picked for the all-star game has steadily declined. In 2007, 22 of the 32 all-stars were American. This year, less than half the roster — which was selected by fans, the team’s coach, and the league commissioner — hailed from the U.S.

Still, every year, young Americans get a chance to impress in the Homegrown Game, a match held the day before the main event that pits players who have risen through the ranks of MLS development academies against other youth teams from across North America.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber said while he would like to see more Americans in the all-star roster, the league’s top priority is to produce “a great team that can win a game.”

Chicago Fire manager Veljko Paunovic — who was chosen to coach the all-stars this year — said the influx of European stars is more a catalyst than a hindrance to the development of homegrown talent.

“A lot of players from all around the world are trying to deliver to the league the experience and talent they have,” Paunovic said. “When American players are competing with foreign players, they are learning from that and getting better.”

Paunovic came to MLS to play for the Philadelphia Union in 2011, after a long career in the German and Spanish leagues. That year, the Union lost in the playoff semifinals.

The eventual winners? David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy.

Contact David Yaffe-Bellany at dbellany@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.

Contact Jacob Stern at jstern@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.

First Published August 5, 2017, 4:32 a.m.