Good, Better, Beckham

David Beckham’s decision to leave Real Madrid and join Los Angeles Galaxy in the American MSL has generated so much media attention it has all but eclipsed the Special One and his little local difficulty with Chelsea Football Club. And in the process it has brought out the best and the worst in people.

Let’s start with the worst. One of the main reasons David is going to the States is that he has come to realise that his international career is over. Not because he wants it to be. Not because he is no longer good enough. But because of Steve McClaren. In other words, a great player can no longer play for his country – which he is desperate to do – because the worst manager in the entire history of English international football says so. A manager who achieved little in the Premiership (he won a trophy and when he departed left the club in the same position in the league as the day he was appointed) and will achieve even less on the international stage, where his shortcomings will be more ruthlessly exposed. How clever, and how just, is that?

But McClaren doesn’t have a monopoly on bad judgement and pettiness. Once the news had broken, Fabio Capello (whose name translates as ‘hair’ – just a single strand of it) announced that Beckham would not play for Real Madrid again – a decision that provokes thought about cutting off noses to spite faces. Anyone who has seen Real lately can witness for themselves the impact Capello has made. They were unsuccessful and now he has made them boringly unsuccessful, for the first time in living memory, and rumour has it that the players are united only in their opposition to him. So the man who has loftily dispensed with Beckham’s services (having virtually ignored him all season) is the man who may not be there much longer.

Beyond those two, the world and his wife have taken the opportunity to pronounce their verdicts on Beckham’s career and the wisdom, or otherwise, of his latest decision. Many have been generous and perceptive, which is no more than Beckham deserves, but others have demeaned themselves with a mixture of rank bad judgement and petty jealousy. When the news first broke, Ray Houghton took up almost an entire programme on Talk Sport in a pathetic effort to convince the public at large that David Beckham wasn’t a great player, though he magnanimously conceded that he was ‘good’ and insisted that he did not begrudge him his wealth. The problem was he couldn’t keep the envy and the resentment out of his voice, as numerous listeners observed and he in turn demonstrated by asking them trivial questions while refusing to confront their serious ones. Fortunately, virtually no-one is likely to take seriously the views of a man who wasn’t even a good player and is even less impressive as a broadcaster.

Happily, there have been many tributes to Beckham’s outstanding playing career with two of the world’s greatest football clubs and with England – tributes which have taken account of his technical ability, his professionalism, his commitment and his leadership. He knows that, for reasons beyond his control, his career both in Spain and internationally has been brought to a premature end and he has made a decision to move on which will allow his family a wonderful quality of life while enabling him to influence the development of the game in the USA. And, believe it or not, that is what matters to him. Far more than money.