BECK OUT GRACEFULLY

DAVID BECKHAM will emerge on an open-top double decker bus in Beijing’s Bird's Nest today and hoof a football into a crowd.

Not that much different from what he did at Wembley on Wednesday night.

That has been Beckham’s stock-in-trade for England, lofting balls into a crowded penalty box.

Today, as part of the London 2012 handover ceremony, Beckham will do his bit for the country by lobbing some sort of fancy ball into the athletes gathered below.

It will sum up what Beckham has become — distinctly more showman than sportsman.

Time

He could easily have resisted and said he was better suited to events in London.

After all, a party in The Mall is good enough for Michael Phelps and his eight gold medals.

Instead, Beckham prefers to embark on what is effectively a round-the-world trip which will take him through 13 time zones before ending up back in Los Angeles, then moving across America to play a match in Boston.

All this less than two weeks ahead of England’s first World Cup qualifier.

It’s no way to prepare. Of course Beckham can prioritise, given that playing for the LA Galaxy amounts to semi-retirement.

And, as it has been for a long time now, Brand Becks is the priority.

The mission to Beijing is beautiful for Becks Inc. because he will no doubt pull off the ambassadorial bit with dignified aplomb, while at the same time selling even more shirts and an array of Beckham products.

The major problem with Beckham is he has lost a major part of the game. Running.

He can’t go past an opponent. He can’t give and go. He’s even struggling to shoot straight.

Before the Czech game, Capello said the time for experiments was over. That the starting line-up would most likely be the team to play against Andorra then critically in Croatia on September 10.

Proper

If proceedings at Wembley haven’t forced Capello to change his mind then England’s World Cup hopes will be in serious trouble before they have barely begun.

Theo Walcott, Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Ashley Young, may never be as good as Beckham was in his pomp but now they offer an awful lot more.

It seems incredible that more than two years after Beckham stepped down as England captain the debate about his place in the team, which should have been a serious issue ahead of 2006, still rages.

The moment he opted to play for LA Galaxy Beckham effectively packed up being a proper player.

Yet in a moment of desperation a weak-willed Steve McClaren recalled him.

Unbelievably, Capello, who disliked Beckham’s celebrity shenanigans and gave him a rough ride at Madrid, has indulged him thus far with England.

It has to stop. Beckham has a role to play — as part of the FA delegation bidding to host the 2018 finals.

Such torch bearing set-pieces, as we will no doubt witness today, are his only real strength.

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