Posted on 01/12/2007 5:22:22 AM PST by Boulton Defiant
Why are we writing him off? By Iain Macintosh 02 December 2006
THE English are a strange nation for celebrity culture.
We're morbidly obsessed with anyone who appears on television for more than 20 minutes.
We relentlessly gorge ourselves on trash media, inciting them to repeatedly hunt down their bronzed quarry - and all so that we may judge them on anything from hip size to complexion.
Inevitably, footballers were dragged into this voyeuristic melting pot and none more so than England's iconic former captain, David Beckham.
Now, let's not beat around the bush here; Becks is a phenomenally good looking chap and would always have attracted a bit of media attention.
We know about his wedding, his houses, his cars, his kids.
But, now, in the autumn of his career, what do we know about him as a player? Nothing, apparently.
I watched an England game a couple of years ago and I heard someone say, 'Oh - there's David Beckham. Isn't it weird to see him playing football?'
In among the trappings of fame, the pop star wife and the exotically-named offspring, people seem to forget that he's actually a professional footballer.
It wouldn't be so disturbing were it not for this syndrome spreading to the gentlemen of the press.
Despite the protestations of his manager Fabio Capello, the word is that Becks will be on the move in the January transfer window.
Where will he hang his Kangol hat? Will he ping fabulous 50-metre passes across the Emirates Stadium?
Will he swing crosses in across the San Siro?
No, say the press. He'll go to America to play with his soccer schools. Why has everyone written him off so early?
Beckham is 31. Last season, he created more goals in La Liga than any other player.
No one can say that his legs have gone, because he never had that much pace in the first place.
CLASS ACT
He may not be part of Europe's elite any more, but he's still a class act.
It's not even just a case of the press reporting on leaks from the Brand Beckham camp; it's the willing acquiescence that his career is over that concerns me.
Is it just easier for us to imagine him basking in the Florida sunshine with a pair of painfully fashionable sunglasses perched on his head?
Or guiding a phalanx of chubby American kids through the basics of the offside trap while Romeo, Philadelphia and Branston, or whatever they call themselves, watch proudly from the sidelines?
The fact is that Beckham can still pass a ball better than most of Europe's top players.
There are few men on earth more lethal with a set-piece, and no one has demonstrated more dignity in the face of perpetual media attack.
He should, by rights, have at least two more seasons at the top before he even begins to consider the semi-retirement of MLS football.
America is for 35-year-olds with wobbly knee-caps.
If Tugay can still run the show for Blackburn at 36, then why do we find it so easy to believe that Beckham is washed up?
Capello told the press that Beckham is still trying to cope with being axed from the England side.
I'm not surprised. I'm still trying to cope with Jermaine Jenas constantly being selected ahead of him.
England had a miserable World Cup, but to lay the blame solely at Beckham's feet was ridiculous.
His set-pieces were practically the only outlet for English attacks in the summer and his sweetly-hit free-kick saved us from an embarrassing failure against Ecuador.
Many of the English fans who howled at the moon for him to be dropped in July were the first to hammer Steve McClaren for not picking him against Croatia in October.
But then, they were the same morons to plead for him to be knighted in 2001, three years after hanging effigies of him over lamp-posts.
As I've said, we're a strange nation.
WHIRLWIND
The PR whirlwind that Brand Beckham has created shouldn't mean that we judge him more harshly than anyone else. He is still just a footballer.
If he does take himself and his family away to the relative calm of the MLS, I wouldn't begrudge him the peace and quiet.
No one wants to spend their golden years being critiqued by idiots.
English football will have missed out on a player who could have, once again, lit up the Premiership.
But will the fans care? They'll be well on their way to doing exactly the same to Wayne Rooney.
The majors(TV) don't want to touch this game on their networks. The rules of the game of soccer don't allow two minutes of commercials every other minute.
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