Beckham

by David Beckham

  He announced the team to play against Tunisia: just read the players off a list written down on a piece of paper. I suppose I must have known, deep down, that it was going to happen. Things hadn’t been right for a couple of days. Even so, when my name wasn’t in the eleven, it felt like somebody had hit me in the stomach. I thought I was going to be sick. I even hoped for a split second that I’d just not heard Glenn saying ‘Beckham’. I looked across at Gary Neville. He was looking back at me. Was he surprised, too? Or just watching to see how I might react? Of course it was a blow to my pride and that would always be something you have to be mature enough to overcome. What really knocked me sideways, though, was not having any real understanding of why the manager had made his decision.

  I’ve always tried to have a professional attitude to training. I love it almost as much as I love playing. That morning, though, was a complete waste of time. I felt so low. I was so angry I couldn’t force myself to work properly. Glenn must have been able to see that I wasn’t coping with what I’d been told. I suppose I should have known what would happen next: as soon as we finished the session, he announced who would be taking questions from the press that afternoon. That list, of course, included my name. It was horrible. I’ve never been that good at hiding my emotions. If I’m unhappy or down, people just know. I did that press conference and didn’t say anything out of turn, but it must have been pretty obvious something wasn’t right. A couple of the other players got calls straight afterwards from journalists who were helping them do World Cup diaries for the papers. ‘What’s wrong with David?’ they were asking. ‘Has he been left out of the team?’

  Lots of managers play mind games with the press and with opposing teams. Here, it seemed to me the England manager was playing mind games with one of his own players. That’s what upset me the most. I didn’t realize it there and then, but I wasn’t going to enjoy France 98 from that press conference onwards. I didn’t know which way to turn. I couldn’t even decide who to speak to for support or advice. I called Victoria first. She was shocked and I think, instinctively, she would have told me to leave and come to America straight away, where the Spice Girls were on tour. She didn’t say that, which is probably just as well; I felt so low I might almost have been tempted. Then I talked to Dad. He couldn’t believe it, either, and at least reassured me that I wasn’t over-reacting. He told me it was understandable that I was so upset.

  I realized I had to speak to Glenn. I can still remember standing in the hotel reception, oblivious to everything and everybody around me. Then I saw the manager coming through, on his way out to play golf.

  ‘I have to talk to you about this. Why have you dropped me? I need to know the reason.’

  Glenn looked at me: ‘I don’t think you’re focused.’

  It took me a moment to understand what he’d said.

  ‘How can you think that? How can you think I’m not focused for the biggest soccer competition in the world? I’m not thinking about anything else. How could I be?’

  It wasn’t until later that I found out what was probably behind it all. The previous week, we’d had a day off to relax, play golf, see our families, and do whatever we wanted. Most of the lads had gone out on the course. I’m not much of a golfer and, anyway, any chance I get I want to be with my family. Victoria flew out to France for the day and the two of us spent our time around the apartment complex swimming, sunbathing and catching up. Glenn didn’t like that. The other players were on the golf course. And I wasn’t. So that meant I wasn’t concentrating on England, as far as he was concerned. They’re all playing golf and he’s with his girlfriend: that can’t be good for team spirit.

  It made no sense to me at all and I still don’t really understand it. If he wanted us all to be together and thought that was so important, then why give us the choice? Maybe it was another chance to test a player, a chance to test me in particular. But why play those mind games with a 23-year-old—or anybody else in the squad, for that matter—especially if the spirit in the camp was something you thought was important?

  As I stood there in the hotel reception, I felt like I’d been cut adrift. I couldn’t let it go.

  ‘Do you know what? I don’t agree with you at all. I’ve not had a very long career but it feels like it’s all been building towards this tournament. How can you think I’d be coming here worrying about anything else? This is the World Cup. That’s how I feel, anyway. I suppose you’ll do what you want.’

  And Glenn did just that. He was leaving me out of the team and, now, he was hurrying off to play golf. He obviously wasn’t interested in anything I had to say. He didn’t care and, I suppose, didn’t need to. It was a cold, cold moment.

  ‘Well, I just don’t think you’re focused. It’s as simple as that.’

  We traveled to Marseille for that opening game and I found myself not wanting to be there. Of course, the supporter in me wanted to see England do well and I don’t want to sound like I was just being selfish about it all. I can’t pretend, though, that I wasn’t completely devastated about being left out. I have a picture at home of me standing next to the dugout during the Tunisia game and the look on my face says it all: as if I’m about to throw up. I was that disappointed. And embarrassed, too: I felt like I’d failed somehow, and that I’d been shamed by the situation. The World Cup is the biggest thing any soccer player can ever be involved in and I found myself wishing that I wasn’t there at all.

  Not being in the team was bad enough. What really killed me was the supposed reason for me being dropped. Was I missing out here because I’d wanted to spend that day with Victoria? As if it was Glenn’s, or anybody else’s, business? Even people who might criticize the way I live my life away from soccer can see that, once I’m out there playing, nothing gets in the way of my concentration on the game. How could the manager have misjudged me so completely?

  Our next match was against Romania and, because we’d beaten Tunisia, it would have been a surprise to be selected for it. I’d talked to Gary, to my dad and to Alex Ferguson about what had been happening and they’d all been supportive. All of them felt I hadn’t been treated well. I also got the impression from back home that supporters wanted to see the younger players, like me and Michael Owen, given their chance. It gave me a real boost, when the two of us were warming up on the touchline against Romania, to hear the England fans chanting my name. As it happened, Paul Ince got injured after about half an hour and I went on in his place and played pretty well. So did Michael: he scored, even though we lost 2–1 to a goal right at the end.

  I was happy to have got my World Cup started, proud that the supporters had cheered so loudly when I came on in that second game. But nothing was clear-cut at France 98. No sooner did I have the feeling that things were starting to go my way, I took another knock. Glenn Hoddle told the press that he had been planning for Michael Owen and I to play the third game, against Colombia, all along. He’d hoped we’d have qualified for the next round by then. It was like being told that you were a squad member who’d get a chance when the manager wanted to rest his first-choice players. Knowing I was going to play was great. Glenn’s explanation as to why just left a bitter taste again.

  At our base in La Baule, we had a small training field which didn’t get used all that much. It was somewhere you could go out with a ball and practice on your own. The day before the Colombia game, I bought some batteries and took this big portable stereo unit out with me. I borrowed two bags of balls. It was a boiling hot afternoon, so I was just in shorts and a undershirt. I stuck the stereo down, put on Tupac, the American rap singer, turned it up full blast and then spent a couple of hours on my own, practicing free-kicks: putting a ball down and then bending it in to the corner of the goal, over and over again.

  The day of the game was my mum’s birthday and, before going into the stadium, we spoke on the phone:

  ‘Score a goal for me.’

  The free-kick against Colombia was my first goal for England. I suppose I sh
ould remember everything about it: the foul, the wall, the angle. But somehow, even at the moment itself, what it meant to me was more important than the goal itself. I knew it had a chance as soon as I struck it and I raced off towards the corner flag to celebrate. Graeme Le Saux tried to grab me round the waist and then Sol Campbell jumped on my back. I’d known Sol since we were twelve years old, training together at Tottenham. Right then, he knew as well as anybody how important this was for me. Even scoring, though, I couldn’t just enjoy plain and simple. Part of me wanted to run over to the bench to Glenn Hoddle. There you go. What did you make of that?

  It was a pity I didn’t, because on the way to the dugout I might have remembered to do what I’d promised before the game: to go and hug Terry Byrne and Steve Slattery, the England masseurs, if I scored. Terry and Slatts had talked to me—and listened to me—through all the highs and lows so far. They’d been great company. The right company: they’d say what they thought, not just what they thought I wanted to hear. And they’d listen for as long as I had something to say. Terry has become a really close friend over the years. After the game, I was on the phone to everybody. I was so pleased at my own performance, that we’d won and that we were through to the next round. With that free-kick, I felt I’d proved a point as far as the manager was concerned.

  But would I be in the team for the game against Argentina in the second round? I was still pretty confused about the manager’s attitude towards me. We had another awkward episode before we left for Saint-Etienne. Sometimes Glenn wanted us to take a walk to loosen up in the afternoon, just in tracksuits and sneakers. This time, though, we got down to the training ground and he suddenly announced he wanted to work on a new free-kick routine that involved someone flicking the ball up and me volleying it over the wall and in. I was worried about a tight hamstring; in fact none of us had warmed up. So when he told me to do it, I just lobbed the ball over the wall rather than hitting it with full power. Glenn got really angry:

  ‘Can’t you do it? Well, if you can’t do it, we’ll forget it.’

  I hadn’t done what he wanted me to, because the last thing I needed was to injure myself. The atmosphere between us was strained afterwards, even though Glenn didn’t mention it again. It was the kind of clash that players remember: not just the ones directly involved but their team-mates, too, who were standing watching it happen. Despite that, I felt I was worth my place in the next game and just kept my fingers crossed.

  England vs Argentina is always a huge game, for all sorts of reasons; not all of them to do with soccer. It’s one of the oldest and greatest rivalries in the game. In Argentina, what we call ‘derbies’ they call ‘classicos’: not just games between neighbors, like United vs City or England vs Scotland, but fixtures with a history, like United vs Liverpool or England vs Germany. They reckon there’s only one ‘classico’ between teams from two different continents: and that’s Us against Them. No wonder it gets a big build-up and that the game in Saint-Etienne in 1998 was no different. I was really excited and looking forward to it. I’d been made to feel insecure and had suffered emotional knocks since the start of the tournament. But I didn’t, for a moment, feel anything but ready for Argentina. I certainly didn’t have any idea what lay in store for me, during the game and after.

  The evening started so well: a great game and us more than a match for them. After Argentina had taken the lead after only five minutes through a Batistuta penalty, Alan Shearer equalized, also from the spot. Over a year had gone by since his last penalty for England, but we all knew he’d lash it in. Then, five minutes later, I put the ball through for Michael Owen to score that fantastic second goal. They got one back and it was 2–2 at half-time. In the dressing room, there were a few words said about the defending at the free-kick from which Zanetti scored their second goal. Otherwise, we just couldn’t wait to go out and get started again: the game was there to be won. How could I have known that, for me, disaster was waiting to happen?

  I think Diego Simeone is a good player. Good, but really annoying to play against: always round you, tapping your ankles, niggling away at you. It gets to opposition players and he knows it. Maybe, too, he was aware that Glenn Hoddle had said before the tournament that he was worried about my temperament in pressure situations. I’d not really had any trouble with him during the game until then but, just after half-time, he clattered into me from behind. Then, while I was down on the ground, he made as if to ruffle my hair. And gave it a tug. I flicked my leg up backwards towards him. It was instinctive, but the wrong thing to do. You just can’t allow yourself to retaliate. I was provoked but, almost at the same moment I reacted, I knew I shouldn’t have done. Of course, Simeone went down as if he’d been shot.

  I’ve made a big mistake here. I’m going to be off. Gary Neville came up behind me, put his arm around my shoulder and then slapped me on the back.

  ‘What have you done? Why did you do that?’

  He wasn’t having a go at me. Gary just wanted to know why I’d kicked out at Simeone. At that moment—and to this day—I don’t know the answer to that. The referee, Kim Nielsen, didn’t say a word to me. He just pulled the red card out of his pocket. I’ll never forget the sight of it as long as I live. Look at the video now: Simeone acting like he’s in intensive care; Veron telling the ref what he thought should happen; the ref with the card; Batistuta nodding, like he thought justice had been done; and me, just walking away, eyes already focused down the tunnel. It wasn’t as if I was angry. The look on my face tells you: I was in a different world. Simeone had laid his trap and I’d jumped straight into it. Whatever else happens to me, those sixty seconds will always be with me.

  Even before I got to the touchline, Terry Byrne had run over from the bench. He put an arm round my shoulder and walked down to the dressing room with me. As soon as we got there, I phoned Victoria in the States. Obviously I hadn’t seen the replays on television and wanted to know what had happened. She was watching the game in a bar in New York. There was something not real about it she said. No-one could make sense of the fact that I’d been sent off. Why had it happened? There wasn’t much more to say.

  Terry stayed with me. I went in and had a shower. A long shower, like it was going to somehow wash all this away. Suddenly, Steve Slattery came running in and was shouting:

  ‘We’ve scored! Sol’s scored!’

  I jumped out of the shower, but a moment later, he was back and telling us the goal had been disallowed. I put on my tracksuit and a French guy, a FIFA official, came and told me I had to go through to the drug-testing room. At least they had a television in there so I could watch the game. At the end of ninety minutes, they told me I could leave and I went and watched extra-time from the tunnel leading out to the field. I couldn’t take in what was unfolding in front of me: it was as if the sending-off wiped away any other memories I might have of the game. But the moment David Batty missed his penalty, and the Argentinians went rushing towards their goalkeeper to celebrate, it sank in. I’ll be going home tomorrow.

  That night was the worst of my life but I did have one miraculous thing to hang onto: I’d soon be with Victoria, who was pregnant with our first child. The day the England party had arrived in Saint-Etienne ahead of the Argentina game, we’d got off the plane and there’d been a message on my cell phone.

  ‘David. It’s Victoria. Please call me as quick as you can.’

  I’d got on the team bus and rang her back.

  ‘I’ve got some news for you,’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We’re pregnant.’

  I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to stand up in my seat and scream it out to everybody. It was mad. I couldn’t believe what I’d just been told. I went into the tiny toilet on the coach and just jumped up and down, hugging myself. I was so happy. It’s the sort of news you want to share with people but, of course, I couldn’t tell a soul.

  There are particular things about that evening in Saint-Etienne that stand out clearly, as
if they’ve been lit up by the flashbulbs that go off around a stadium at night: the sending-off itself, talking on the phone to Victoria, remembering I was going to be a father and, then, seeing my dad in the parking lot after the game. But the rest of it? Probably for my own sanity, it’s a blur: the game’s going on, but it’s like I’m watching it through the wrong end of a telescope; the anger, the frustration and the shame; and the disbelief that this could all be happening to me.

  When it was over, the England players went to the end where our supporters were massed. I didn’t feel like I could be any part of that, so I turned and went back to the dressing room. At the time, Glenn Hoddle was doing the television interview in which he said that, if it had been eleven against eleven, England would have won. The papers and everybody else, of course, turned that into him saying it was my fault England had lost to Argentina.

  The players came back into the dressing room and it was deathly quiet. Alan Shearer sat down next to me. ‘Sorry Al,’ was all I could think of to say. Alan just stared at the floor in front of him. What could anybody say? Only each individual player knows what was in his mind after that game. I won’t ever forget that Tony Adams was the one man who came and found me. The first time I’d been in an England squad with him, Tony had scared me to death. Away to Georgia in a qualifier, just a couple of minutes before we went out for the game, he’d stood up in the dressing room. ‘Right, lads! This is ours. We deserve this. We’ve come out here to win it!’ It wasn’t just that Tony was loud, it was the passion and the determination in his voice. I couldn’t believe the ferocity of it. It was one of those moments when you’re shocked into a new level of commitment. Not that you didn’t care before: but being in that dressing room, witnessing how much it mattered to Tony, was inspiring to someone who was just starting out as an international player. England losing in Saint-Etienne hurt him as much as it hurt anybody, especially as he thought he might not play for his country again. It was awful in the dressing room that night. There could be no disappointment like it. But Tony came over and put a hand on my shoulder.