David Beckham is the blogger’s gift that keeps on giving.
This is a guy with one goal and one assist in six matches so far this season in Major League Soccer, which he couldn’t be troubled to join until the season was more than halfway over. He remains the No. 1 draw for the Los Angeles Galaxy and MLS, but he is little more than an above-average player. No huge surprise, at age 34.
Becks always has been in it for the money, whether it comes straight from the MLS’s checking account or from some besotted commercial sponsor.
He went to Los Angeles to make soccer popular in the States, remember? Then couldn’t be bothered with half of this season.
Well, now Brand Beckham pretty much demands that he wangle a ticket to the World Cup next year in South Africa, and he’s going about it with the subtlety of a brick.
Check out this gag-reflex-inducing kiss-up job to England coach Fabio Capello. Self-appointed Teacher’s Pet did everything but promise to put a polished apple on Fabio’s desk every morning.
Here are the pertinent bits, as reported by the Daily Mail of England:
(Italics added by this author)
“He [Capello] has changed the mentality of the players,” Beckham said. “The way the players prepare themselves, the way we spend the week together, is very serious, very concentrated.
“It’s working because we’re not just winning games, we’re together as a team. Even when we’ve come in at half-time and we’re not winning, there’s that spirit you can feel. That’s what the manager has done. He’s given players confidence.”
Beckham continued, “I believe that we’ve got a chance [in South Africa] if we play like we’ve been playing and have the togetherness that we’ve shown all the way through the qualifiers.
“You need a certain amount of luck along the way, of course, but we have got the players and we have got the team. Everything is set up right. It’s down to the players to perform.”
Fabio, you’re a genius! Particular those bits in which you invite into the team a guy who will be 35 in May. A guy whose only significant skill is kicking a ball at rest. A midfielder whose performance, without the ball, at Germany 2006 prompted a British journalist to suggest that Beckham “appeared to spend the tournament defending the touch line.”
We imagine Capello is smart enough to know when someone is blowing smoke up his arse … and not to believe much of anything that comes out of David Beckham’s mouth. Aside from that he really, really, really wants to play in South Africa. That, we believe.
It’s good for Brand Beckham.
3 responses so far ↓
1 jen // Sep 5, 2009 at 5:53 AM
Scathing and brilliant!
2 Jeremy // Sep 6, 2009 at 6:32 AM
Real indepth article. If you hate Beckham, that is fine, but clearly Beckham will sacrifice when needed. He gave up a ton in money and has to see uneducated articles like this because he wants to play for his country and the top level in soccer. Coming to USA may have been a mistake but it has nothing to do with Becks ability as a player and his desire to play for his country. If you questions Capellos reasoning for keeping Becks around then you clearly dont understand the word team
3 Joseph D'Hippolito // Sep 6, 2009 at 4:31 PM
The following is from a British newspaper. Apparently, Beckham is right about Capello:
“In the steamy heat of a Caribbean morning some England players were not too enthusiastic about the coaching session ahead of their friendly against Trinidad and Tobago.
Fabio Capello was not amused. He brought the session to a halt, summoning the players around him.
He told them: “We can do this properly now or we can come back this afternoon. It’s your decision.”
The exercise was completed. No more Club 18-30. It was a welcome to Club England.
“It wasn’t the last time he’s done it,” said a source within the new-look England set-up, which the Italian rules with an iron fist.
Capello doesn’t desire discipline. He demands it. And the rewards were apparent last Wednesday night at Wembley.
Not so long ago, the concession of a goal would have signalled an England collapse. Not now – as John Terry’s late winner against Ukraine testified. So what are the foundation stones to the Capello approach?
“It is all surnames now,” said the England source. “No nicknames.
Everyone gets called by their surname. There are no favourites, no-one is guaranteed a place.” So, no more dinner dates with JT, Stevie G, Wazza or Young Frank.
“Yes, I am very happy with the way the squad is developing,” said Capello when he reflected on the victory at Wembley that kept his perfect World Cup qualification record intact. “It is better than I hoped for. It is like a club.”
And that is exactly how Capello has run the show.
His first act came before a squad was named when he established a full-time medical backroom staff and abandoned the practise of using personnel on a match-to-match basis.
Sir Alex Ferguson, for one, was never comfortable with club physios treating his Manchester United players.
Then came the rules. Punctuality, a dress code, a ban on mobile phones at meal times and a new schedule ahead of training.
Punctuality ? Just ask Frank Lampard. One morning, his journey from west London to England’s Watford hotel was a tortuous one. In previous years, it might have been laughed off among the group.
Capello broke off from his meal, listened to Lampard’s explanation then pointedly declared: “Well, in future you will have to leave earlier.”
He wasn’t joking. It wasn’t just Frank who got the lesson. So did the rest of the squad. Nowadays if a player mistakenly brings his mobile phone to a meal and it rings, Capello needs to do nothing. The other players berate the guilty party.
Dress code ? Everyone wears official England gear at lunch and dinner. As long as it has the Three Lions emblem, Capello is happy.
“Those Three Lions are your club badge. That is how it should be treated,” he says.
Training? Before his arrival, players would get changed in their hotel rooms. Inevitably, some would be quicker which meant that a group of players would be waiting on the coach for a tardy teammate.
Now they get changed together in the dressing room at the training ground. “We are all together,” is the Capello ethos. The players change together, they go out as a group and they come back as a group.
The unblemished set of results in competitive matches suggests Capello is getting it right. And any fears about the condition of players ahead of the two qualifiers against Kazakhstan and Andorra in June can be allayed.
England stars not involved in either the Champions League or FA Cup finals will be free to chill out on a beach following the end of the Premier League season. Time for a few beers maybe.
“I cannot forbid it,” admits Capello. The smart money, though, is on an alcohol-free sojourn, no unsavoury headlines and a voluntary fitness regime to ensure readiness for the World Cup.
It is Club England not Club Tropicana these days.”
Leave a Comment