Thank goodness for David Beckham. What would England do without their country’s most visible male? English clubs were facing the latter stages of a Champions League competition bereft of English involvement, thinking they had kissed all interest goodbye in the world’s most significant club competition, when the man with perfect grooming steps into the breach. Paris St Germain are still there. Just.
Their 2-2 home draw with Barcelona last night may well prove not to be enough to facilitate further progress. But it could have been a lot worse.
And the good news is, the reason it wasn’t a lot worse was because of the illustrious Englishman in the middle of the PSG midfield. Beckham’s industrious performance, hectoring and driving his team mates forward, dominated the reporting of the game in the English press. Rightly so: he was excellent.
Never wasteful in possession, always engaged, always alert and keen, those quarter back passes perfectly conducted. The model professional. But better still, he maintains an English foothold in the competition. For that, the English can be but pitifully grateful.
He really is a remarkable character, Beckham. Not just in his physical condition, which, according to those who take an interest in such things, like a good wine appears to improve with age.
Not just in his extraordinary grooming (ten minutes after the end of a game I saw him play for PSG against Marseille recently, he was addressing the media looking absolutely immaculate, not a crease or disturbance in his attire, his suit worth more than my house, his tie ramrod straight, his hair perfect, his smile on full beam; and he smelt lovely). But what he is getting really good at is his unerring ability to put himself right in the middle of the story.
In more than a of decade of being a football fan, I have never seen anyone with such an unfailing eye for ensuring he is the thing we are talking about. Watching him in action over the years, I have come to be in awe of his natural facility for placing himself at the heart of things.
He doesn’t need a platoon of PR advisers to plot his course. He doesn’t need a dresser to straighten his tie. He just switches on the smile and steps forward. As he does so, every head turns in his direction. Like the ultimate social sorcerer, everyone is charmed.
You could see that at the Sports Personality of the Year ceremony last December. Here he was in an Olympic year in which he had played no sporting part, placing himself at the heart of the biggest story in the island’s sporting history.
In every picture of Bradley Wiggins receiving his honour, there is Becks in the background smiling that beatific smile of his, daring the eye to look elsewhere.
A skill like his has been parodied in many a creative invention: he is the football version of Woody Allen’s Zelig, the sporting Forrest Gump, the athletic equivalent of Kenneth Twomey, the hero of Anthony Burgess’s fantastic novel Earthly Powers.These were all made-up characters who somehow found themselves at the centre of every historic event of note, pictured alongside everyone from Hitler to Marilyn Monroe.
Always there, always catching the eye of the lens. There is nothing made up about Beckham: he is doing it before our eyes.
And still we lap it up. This morning the radio was reporting that he would like to be considered for England duty. One decent Champions League performance and suddenly Roy Hodgson’s destiny is clear. Though if the English somehow limp to Brazil, you get the feeling Becks will be in the picture, whether he is chosen to play or not.
There are those who find this capacity of his intensely irritating. Some fulminate against its application for commercial ends. Some claim he turns serious sport into a circus. In truth, some simply find his flawless physicality offensive.
Personally, I think it should be celebrated. There is something endearing about his remorseless pursuit of fame. It is a skill, beautifully conducted.
And besides, never mind the money-making capacity he has to be pictured in every paper, if Beckham wasn’t there at PSG, if he had decided to retire properly after his four years of relaxing in LA, there would not be a single English representative left in the Champions League.
It may be tenuous, it may be about to come to the most definitive of ends on the pitch at the Camp Nou, but at least thanks to him, the English can cling in there. Imagine if the most patriotic of Englishmen wasn’t there, flying the flag.
The only thing the English would have to look forward to is the chance that Howard Webb might referee the final. And that really is desperate.
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