Nothing wrong with beckham
Oh please !
He holds the record number of caps for an outfield player for England, and I therefore ask what did he achieve for the team during those ten or so years when he was picking up those frankly 'token' caps for the last 30 odd games with the embarrassing cameo appearances towards the very end when it seeemed the only reason he was there was to please the FA and sell more tickets at their bidding ?
He should have been stood down years ago from England. As George Best said of Beckham, 'he can't tackle, can't head, doesn't track back' etc.... George Best was right.
So on to his glory, what's he ever done ? Well he got himself sent off twice (a record for any England player) never scored a Wembley (a record for the amount of caps pro rata ?) missed several key penalties in competitions (stupid and inexcusable more than once), talked Ericsson in letting him play as a quarter back in Belfast on another inglorious night for England when we lost 1-0, he never once showed ANY signs of being a capable captain or talking to/encouraging others on the pitch like a real captain would, and had he not been the famous David Beckham, and that's famous just for being famous sake rather than being a world class footballer (which his lack of recognition in individual footballing awards terms proves), would he ever have got more than 50 caps for his country ? I dont think so.
I don't want to hear how passionate he is/was. Every player pulling on the England shirt should feel that way and if they don't then they shouldn't be there.
Then there is the needless booking he picked up against Wales which he admitted that he wanted to get so that he didn't have to travel to the next away game (in Azerbijan or Albania or somewhere horrible) because his wife had a modelling shoot or some other non football related nonsense. Does this sound like the model professional and hero that you all seem to think he is ? No, it's shabby and unprofessional behaviour.
So quite why people make this big fuss about him I've no idea, at club level he peaked in the English league over 10 years ago. Since then he's just a celebrity who is now playing in a conference standard league because he wants an easy life and big bucks, oh and his missus likes being seen near designer shops whether that's in LA, Madrid, Milan and now probably Paris. I don't actually have a problem with any of that apart from the fact that people think he's a legend and a world beater....he's really not.
The Milan fans had him sussed and so did the LA Galaxy fans who rightly called him a Judas when he waltzed off to Italy mid season. Even the LA people are now saying that they regret the hype surrounding his arrival so what does that tell you ?
He is however a self centred, petulant, arrogant, and immature child, who has offered England nothing for years and years and years, but he 'had' to play every game, take every set piece (with very few goals from them by the way) and no-one had the sense to see it was actually harming us internationally.
Before people start on about the goal against Greece, a couple of things - Firstly it was in his home stadium at the time not in Milan, Madrid, Rio, or Amsterdam, and secondly had England not gotten a draw that day we were not out of the competition. We would have gone into a play off with the Ukraine.
The fact remains that when called upon against the better nations in World Cup and Euro Championship finals he's NEVER once produced anything to write home about. You could argue for the scuffed penalty against Argentina, but the rest of that game he was also invisible.
David Beckham may be a legend in Manchester for when he played at United, but the rest of his legendary status is very in his own tiny mind or in the minds of journo's who had free trips around the world out of it.
Anyone noticed that without him we are now up to 5th in the world rankings with decent kids coming through ? It must just be a coincidence I guess.