Amsterdammer said:
Finally they get to their senses............Beckham is nothing man. Worse football player. All he has is a great long pass and a great free kick...........and not to forget great looks wich helps selling lots and lots of t-shirts. Really overrated player pfff.....
My sentiments exactly!
The guy plays for 'Brand Beckham'. He's a total narcissist. There were a ton of players who offer more than him on the pitch. Just look at the world cup - Figueiredo, Cambiasso, Cahill, Borowski, Appiah, Pirlo, Pardo... but do any of them get special blue boots to kick a ball in? NO! Whenever a goal is scored, who is first to jump on the players back? Just so his face is in the papers - yup, it's the one trick pony himself.
David Beckham has managed to draw some of the sting from the media's recriminations by announcing that he was stepping down as captain. At least he owed Eriksson that, given the coach's strange insistence on selecting him come what may. Eriksson declared that he was not married to his captain but Beckham still became his ball and chain. Having hitched his wagon to a star Eriksson ended up tied to a paper moon.
People were even conceiving that if the position arose, Ericsson would have picked Beckham in goal if that was the only position available - however, by changing the formation to fit him - 'quarterback position' for fucks sake! - We adopted to fit into the team a man so in love with his own image; he played for himself, and not his team.
In a way Beckham's announcement, absurdly treated by Sky Sports as if it was another Abdication, may have stolen some of McClaren's thunder since the new coach's first decision would have been whether or not to allow a fading captain to keep the armband. That would have been McClaren's chance to declare himself his own man, much as Bobby Robson did when, on succeeding Ron Greenwood, he not only stripped Kevin Keegan of his captain's pips but dropped the nation's idol altogether.
Not that it really matters. The England captaincy has become a public relations exercise and, while Beckham applied himself assiduously to the PR bit, about the only time he showed genuine leadership on the field was when he almost single-handedly dragged England to automatic qualification for the last World Cup in the 2-2 draw with Greece at Old Trafford. England's best World Cup captain since Bobby Moore remains Mick Mills, who took over from the injured Keegan in Spain in 1982 although John Terry, say, might reverse the trend sufficiently to challenge this claim.
So, bye bye Mr Merchandise! :applause: When it comes to the right-hand side of midfield, it's time for Lennon to play. He reminds me of the late Celtic winger Jimmy Johnstone because he's so small and changes direction really quickly. He has a low centre of gravity; he's there one minute and gone the next.
The World Cup didn't faze him when he was used as a substitute and there's no bigger competition than that, so why hold him back? It's also important to remember that when Lennon came on, England weren't playing very well, yet he still managed to make an impact. Think back to the Trinidad & Tobago match: Wayne Rooney might have lifted the players when he made his return but it was Lennon who made the real difference.
It was the same in the quarter-final against Portugal when Lennon came on for Beckham. The big thing that he gives you is that defenders immediately back off when he gets the ball. No one really backs off when Becks gets the ball. That's no disrespect to David and his ability, he's been a good player for England, but he's a different type of player to someone like Lennon, who can beat a man and cross from the byline.
I think the problem Beckham has always had is that he's never really been sure whether he wanted to play on the right-hand side of midfield or in the middle. I remember reading a post some years ago, when he said "great players have played through the middle - I am one of those players".
His greatest asset is/was supplying fantastic crosses but he also has the ability to cross balls without beating people. At times when he was on the right it looked like he wanted to be in the middle, and when he did come inside, everyone was on a postage stamp, fighting for space.
