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Macca is correct to go Beck to the future
By: Mark Crellin 29 May 2007
I’ve always said dropping David Beckham from the England squad right after the World Cup, and before Becks had reached a deserved 100 caps, was a pathetically small-minded way for Steve McClaren to ‘prove he was his own man’ but you’ve at least got to give him credit for recognising his mistake and reversing it, rather than stubbornly continuing on a misguided course.
The Beckham-haters in the media see it differently, of course, and his weekend recall prompted frenzied debate, though anyone who watched Madrid-Deportivo on Saturday night from an impartial standpoint can only have surmised that the England squad must consist of 22 Pele clones for Beckham’s inclusion to be at all contentious.
Madrid, who were outsiders for La Liga when Fabio Capello finally recalled Beckham but now lead the table with two games to go, won 3-1, with the England man setting up the opening two goals, hitting the post with a free-kick and generally playing brilliantly. This is all in a day’s work for Becks at the moment but all of us who have sat miserably through England’s recent performances know most of the current squad find concepts like ‘creating goals’ and ‘putting in decent shots’ impossibly alien.
While many English fans and journalists remain scathing of Beckham’s talents, the Madrid superstars think he’s the dog’s bollocks. Their game plan on Saturday reminded me of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode where Will Smith turned out to be brilliant at basketball. Before a big game the coach asked his team “What’s plan A?” “Pass to Will” they dutifully responded. Coach: “What’s plan B?” Team: “Pass to Will.” Coach: “What’s plan C?” Team: “Pass to Will.” It seems Capello and his team act out a similar scenario prior to Madrid games.
For starters, Beckham takes all the corners and free-kicks, to the disgust of long-standing Roberto Carlos watchers, who love observing his eternal, unsuccessful struggle to recreate that brilliant swerving free-kick he scored against France in 1980 or something. Not only that, when Mahamadou Diarra and company get posession if Becks is anywhere near available for a pass, you can guarantee the ball will come winging its way towards him. Such deference is de rigeur in school football, where one excellent player stands out a mile, but we’re talking here about the potential champions of arguably the best league in the world. What can not be disputed is that Beckham is one of the best players on one of the best teams on the planet. And yet, remarkably, his selection is a source of bemusement to some, while honest triers like Stewart Downing waltz into the squad unquestioned.
Of course, picking Beckham is a retrograde, stop-gap move because we can’t possibly select him once he heads to America and starts playing in that Mickey Mouse MLS rubbish.
Can’t we?
Yet another fallacy in the Beckham debate is that the American game is such a shambles, there’s no way he’ll be able to stay fit and sharp enough for the rigours of the international game. Fans of the America national side would probably beg to differ. The USA team usually features at least five or six starters who ply their trade domestically, and yet, despite fielding half a team’s worth of players totally lacking in fitness and sharpness, they still sit 29th in the FIFA world rankings. And that’s after a disappointing World Cup where they didn’t play that well but still managed to hold eventual winners Italy to a 1-1 draw, handicapped by playing for most of one half a man down, and, of course, by the fact their local league is so two-bob the majority of their out-of-shape band could barely break into a gentle jog for the last half-hour.
In reality, the reason the major summer international events are such damp squibs these days is that the big stars turn up knackered from their overly demanding European club seasons. If anything, by moving to a country where he’ll find the football a little less taxing, Beckham will be able to stay fresh and remain effective as an international force for longer. Far from ending his international days, this move can prolong them.
One final anti-Beckhamite trope is that he has ‘under-performed’ in recent major championships. That’s probably true of World Cup 2002 and the 2004 Euros but the facts suggest he was the only beacon of quality in last year’s lamentable World Cup campaign.
While conceding he wasn’t brilliant, let’s examine the campaign, match by match. A 1-0 defeat of Paraguay. We play terribly but win thanks to an early own goal, conceded from a beautifully delivered Beckham free-kick. A 2-0 win over Trinidad. We play terribly but an excellent Beckham cross picks out Peter Crouch for the crucial opening goal. Steven Gerrard then scores as well. A 2-2 draw with Sweden. A fairly meaningless game in which Joe Cole scores a wonder goal and Gerrad scores again. A 1-0 beating of Ecuador. We play terribly but a brilliant Beckham free-kick sees us into the quarter-finals. Portugal 0-0 (we lose on penalties). Ugh - don’t want to talk about it.
The upshot: Beckham scores one and sets up two, all absolutely vital goals. Afterwards, he is given his marching orders. By contrast, Frank Lampard and Gerrad score two relatively insignificant goals between them, both mess up in the penalty shoot-out, and have continued to misfire since (oh, what am I saying, Stevie G scored twice against Andorra - well done old boy!) and yet continue to get free pass after free pass from McClaren and the media.
If you think I’ve conclusively proved that Beckham deserves his place for the upcoming matches, then you’re right. If you’re wondering why the matter is even at issue, given that the facts are so clearly in his favour, then you raise a good point.
Responsibility for the way Beckham polarises opinion lies squarely at his own door. Becks loves the celebrity lifestyle and has embraced it to the extent that, even now, he remains the most famous footballer on the planet, a title he has probably held since the late ‘90s. Some find this irksome (though more rational folks couldn’t give a hoot) because no one could argue Becks is the best player in the world, and he’s probably never even been in the top five. ‘He’s over-rated’ they cry. “He’s no Zidane’ they used to cry. These are actually pretty irrelevant points because no informed fans or pundits have ever even compared Beckham to the likes of Zidane. We all know he is what he is, a fantastic deliverer of crosses, who scores now and again and also pops up with the odd sublime long pass, but who couldn’t get past the left-back if one of the pillars at Stonehenge lined up opposite him, is sometimes a liability defensively, can be prone to idiotic bookings and sending-offs and must absolutely never be called upon when an important penalty needs to be put away. Basically, Beckham is punished because a few non-football fans across the globe have never seen him play but have heard his name mentioned and therefore presume he’s the top dog.
Do I want Beckham ensconced on the right for England ad infinitum, while Aaron Lennon and David Bentley stew on the bench? Of course not. He won’t be around for the next World Cup and the two young guns will be fighting out the spot amongst themselves by then. But right now (and Lennon is currently injured don’t forget), England are pretty rubbish and need someone about who can create and score goals to help them get out of this funk and into Euro 2008. Cue DB. Anyone who tells you different is just a knee-jerk anti-Beckhamite who has not seen him play in the last few months, because anyone who has, knows he has earned his spot.
Five observations you simply won't get anywhere else
1. If you want a sign of what a distressingly mercenary nation we’ve become, look no further than the pre-match coverage of the Championship play-off final, which all centred around how important the match is financially - with £60m the figure most commonly bandied around.
This is, for starters, ridiculous, Alice in Wonderland stuff. Are Derby going to spend anywhere near £60m on new players this summer? No. Will they raise the wages of the entire squad so as to soak up the surplus cash? No. Will they (God forbid) reduce admission and season ticket prices, not needing to charge the fans so much with all this ‘TV money’ flowing into the coffers? No chance.
As with Watford last season, nothing will happen at all to make anyone think Derby are suddenly rolling in huge amounts of disposable income and, unless Giles Barnes realises his full brilliance earlier than expected, they will be coming straight back down, like over half of the previous play-off final victors.
What happened to romance? The reason the play-off final is a big deal is that the loyal Derby fans, who have spent the last few years cheering on their team in the Championship, will now get to see their boys battling it out with the Ronaldos, Drogbas and Berbatovs of the top flight, and visit some of the most historic stadiums in the country into the bargain. Nothing against the Championship (as a QPR fan I’m mighty happy to be there next season) but there’s no question the top players are to be found in the league above and getting to test your mettle against them is the dream of all smaller clubs. That’s what reaching the Premiership is all about, not some mythical influx of funds. And if the Rams sign Ronaldinho this summer, I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong.
2. Speaking of the play-off finals, the goals of the weekend came from Richard Walker in Bristol Rovers’ 3-1 defeat of Shrewsbury, which took the Pirates into League One. Obviously it would be great if Walker stayed with Rovers but you can’t tell me such an exquisite finisher couldn’t produce the goods at a higher level.
3. AC Milan were rubbish last week and yet Liverpool didn’t take advantage. Why not? I think they were trying to stick too closely to the Istanbul blueprint. How else do you explain the fact they only moved into anything resembling an attacking formation when the cause already looked lost? And what about the mysterious, out-of-the-blue appearance of Harry ‘blimey, does he still play for Liverpool?’ Kewell? I was half-expecting Jerzy Dudek to come on in goal for the second half.
I was also a bit mystified by the selection of Bolo Zenden. Yes, he’s a reasonable player, but the first thing Benitez did the next day, when he began planning for the 07/08 season, was to announce Zenden would not be returning. If you think so little of a player that you’ve got absolutely no intention of keeping him at the club next season, why do you have him starting in the Champions League final?
4. Saddest sight of the sporting weekend? Us crushing the West Indies at Headingley. I’m always keen for England to do well but surely only Ryan Sidebottom can take any satisfaction out of such a one-sided clash. I doubt KP cares whatsoever about his double-ton. He knows he’ll never again face such a powder-puff attack - until the next time we take on the Windies.
The sad reality is that, while Banlgadesh are making slow, (okay, very slow) progress towards respectability, the Windies are going the other way. Soon, they’ll only be worthy of a couple of warm-up Tests before we play a five-Test series against proper oppo and that will be a massive shame.
5. Sorry for the sporadic updates this season - although it’s only one M Naughton who writes in to complain and he’s a Luton fan so clearly can’t be taken seriously. (Just joshing Hatters fans - Kevin Blackwell will have you back in the Championship this time next year (I didn’t think there were enough jokes in the column this week!))
If something spurs a tirade over the off-season, rest assured it will get full play here. If not, have a great summer everyone. See you in August!
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Put on: 29th May 2007
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