lookupsport

Once again David Beckham has proved he is still a top class player, worthy of a place in pretty much any team in the world.

Having been told he would never play for Real Madrid again he not only played in their biggest game of the season against Bayern Munich this week, but created 2 goals and won the man of the match award, putting a case to be included in the next England squad.

Now one game doesn’t justify a place, but he has proved enough times that he is a man for the big occasion, in the same way that Gerrard is for Liverpool.  They are both capable of taking a game by the scruff of the neck, inspiring their team mates and turning it round.  Mclaren has said all the right things since Tuesday night’s game, but has he got the bottle to admit he made a mistake and including him in the next squad. 

Mclaren obviously wanted to make a fresh start, but with Beckham having resigned the captaincy, I thought and said at the time that he was still worthy of a place in the squad.  Unfortunately like so much of Britain’s top sports people, he was victim of a tabloid vendetta, and negative comments from a variety of TV pundits that had their own agenda.  Comments by Ian Wright for example, who was clearly upset about the exclusion of his step son and mentioned on more than one occasion that Beckham could not go round a player in the same way that Lennon could (for Lennon read Shaun Wright-Phillips).  The fact that Beckham does not need to beat a defender because he has the ability to bend a ball around him didn’t enter the equation - I remember one quote at half time along the lines of “what’s he done this half except put in 4 crosses where we could have and should have scored”.  What else do they expect him to do?  Get on the end of his own crosses maybe? 

The problem Beckham now has is his impending move to LA Galaxy - he will be out of the European limelight and therefore presumably out of mind next season, and is therefore running out of time and opportunity to stake a claim for Euro 2008.