Beckham Page 23

  I’d only ever skippered a side once in my career. During my first year at Old Trafford, I was captain of the youth team that won the Milk Cup in Northern Ireland. Lack of experience never stopped anyone dreaming, though. Once I’d established myself as an England player, I’d started to have ambitions—which, of course, I kept to myself—to make the next step, which would be the greatest honor of all. I’ve always believed that you should set yourself the highest of goals. I got as far as having a meeting with Kevin Keegan after Alan Shearer announced his international retirement. I wanted the England manager to know that I believed I could take on the job as captain. Kevin didn’t say yes or no. But he did say he thought I would make an England captain one day.

  By the time Kevin had left the international set-up, I think people were starting to talk about the possibility of me being up to the job. I have to say there were at least as many people against the idea at the time as were for it. And obviously it wasn’t something I could make happen myself: I just had to wait and see, along with everybody else. The night before Peter Taylor announced his squad for the friendly game against Italy, Victoria was away and I was staying at Gary Neville’s house. My cell phone rang at about eight o’clock in the morning. I’m not the best at getting up early, so my first, blurry reaction was: Who the hell’s that?

  I picked up the phone and managed to mutter:

  ‘Hello?’

  The voice at the other end was wide awake.

  ‘Hello, David. It’s Peter Taylor.’

  I came to my senses very quickly indeed. I was out of bed and on my feet.

  ‘Oh. Hello, Peter. How are you?’

  The caretaker manager hadn’t just rung up for a chat. I’ll never forget what came next:

  ‘Sorry to ring this early but I’m about to announce the squad. I’ve picked a young group and some new young players. I think the right thing is for you to captain them. I’ve got absolutely no doubt about you being ready for the job. I wanted you to know before I tell anybody else.’

  I had to sit down again for five minutes. It crossed my mind that I might still be asleep. Had that phone call really happened? I was frozen to the spot by what I’d just heard: so excited, so proud, humbled by the thought of it. I phoned Victoria. I phoned Mum and Dad. Something like this hasn’t really happened until you’ve shared it with your family. And then, still sat on the bed, I found myself thinking: It’s fantastic. But I don’t want to be England captain just for one game. I want the job to keep.

  Once that was in my mind, I calmed down a bit. I didn’t run in and jump up and down on Gary’s bed. We had breakfast later and I just told him what had happened, almost matter-of-factly:

  ‘Oh, by the way Gaz. I’ve been made England captain. Pass the cornflakes.’

  I must admit I’d always seen Gary as a captain, either at United or with England. As it turned out, it happened to me first. He was as pleased for me as I’d have been for him. It was some way to start a day before the drive in to train. I think the news got to Carrington before I did and I got some grief from the United lads, who insisted on calling me ‘Skipper’ for the rest of the morning.

  I didn’t really talk to anyone about how to approach the captain’s job. I’d seen how other people did it. I knew my own character, and that I had to find my own way. I realized that the shouting and hollering wouldn’t be for me. It was going to have to be about going out there and playing, working hard, and hoping to lead by example. Joining up with the rest of the squad for the first time as captain was great. The whole experience was, even though I put myself under pressure: I couldn’t just relax and enjoy the moment because I was aware, the whole time, that I didn’t want this to be a one time only thing. I had to try to make sure that a new full-time manager would agree with the decision Peter Taylor had made.

  I was delighted Peter had given me the armband and, in hindsight, I’m grateful that he picked the squad he did too. I was captaining a young side: I felt I had the experience and that I could take that extra responsibility. It might not have seemed so natural a progression if senior players like Paul Ince, Tony Adams or Alan Shearer, who’d been captains themselves, had still been involved. I might not have taken things so much in my stride. Even so, some people weren’t sure about me in the role. It helped that Peter made it clear he believed in me. It felt like my team-mates did too. There were enough really young lads around for me to feel like an old man in the England set-up.

  Leading the team out against Italy—never mind it was an exhibition, never mind the stands weren’t full—was one of the proudest moments of my whole career. Peter Taylor might have taken a risk with me and with the team, but I don’t think we let him or England down. We lost 1–0 to a very strong Italian side but deserved better. Emile Heskey terrified their defense all night long and we made plenty of chances but couldn’t score. Personally, I knew I’d never felt like this playing for England. Since that night, people have said to me that they saw a change in me almost as soon as I pulled on that England armband. I know the incident they have in mind when they say that.

  We were about ten minutes into the second half and it was still 0–0. We’d had a couple of half-shouts for penalties earlier in the game. This time, the ball got crossed in and ricocheted up in the air. I didn’t know where the challenge came from but I remember being barged out of the way as the ball dropped towards me. It was in the area and a couple of England players appealed for the foul. I went down on the floor. As I got myself to my feet, the player who I guess had bumped me, Gattuso, was shouting and screaming at me. Maybe he thought I’d gone down too easily. Or that acting angry would keep him out of trouble with the referee. Anyway, I went to run off and he grabbed hold of my shirt. I turned back and looked at him. It was the kind of split-second which, in the past, might have seen me react in the wrong way. Here, I just wanted to get on with it: I was England captain and had to be bigger than that. I jogged away from him. And from trouble. In the end, Gattuso got away with it. A couple of minutes later, he scored with a screamer from thirty yards which turned out to be the winner.

  Peter Taylor had done a really good job. The new England coach was in the stands in Turin that night. The argument about a foreigner, Sven-Goran Eriksson, taking over running the national team had been going on for a couple of weeks. It even came up in the England dressing room. I understood people’s concerns. I know they wanted an Englishman who’d be up to taking on the responsibility of being in charge of the England team. But the situation we found ourselves in was that the country was desperate for success, desperate to see the national team play some decent soccer. We needed to get the best man for the job, whatever his background. And Sven was, and is, one of the most respected managers in the game. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for most of the doubters to forget all their worries about the fact that Sven was a Swede: the results and, just as important, England’s performances soon saw to that.

  Before he took the England job, I’d never met Sven. I don’t think I’d even played against any of the club sides he’d managed. In soccer, though, you know bosses by their reputations: word gets round about the very best. That, and the trophies he’d won, told you the new man deserved our respect. I was first introduced to Mr Eriksson when we joined up ahead of his first game in charge, an exhibition against Spain, at Villa Park. When we arrived at the team hotel, I got a message that he wanted to see me.

  It was just a chance to say hello, and to let me know a little about how he planned to approach the job. Sven had been going round the country watching dozens of games. There’d been so much talk about him ahead of that first match in charge. Even a hoax phone call, put in to him by a radio DJ pretending to be Kevin Keegan, went out over the air in Manchester. One of the questions had been about me: would he keep me as captain? And Sven had said yes. Obviously, I hadn’t taken that at face value and I’d been worrying—really worrying—for the week leading up to our first get-together. Lucky for me, I heard what I was desperate to hear almos
t at once:

  ‘You’ll be staying as captain. I think you’ll make a great England captain. You’re a good enough player and a player others can lookup to. Anybody who doubts that, it’s your job to prove them wrong.’

  What he told me, and told the rest of the team, was pretty simple. Sven wanted England to play good, attractive soccer. But he also wanted us to play effective soccer. The training was relaxed, especially because Steve McClaren, Peter Taylor and Sammy Lee were all part of the coaching staff at first. There was nothing revolutionary going on: Sven was calm, was prepared to let other people get on with what he wanted them to do and just got involved himself when he needed to make his point. And when he did that, every player listened. Never mind his reputation, Sven had a real presence that commanded respect and attention. The players knew straight away that England had put the right man in charge. The rules were clear and simple and you didn’t cross them. We were treated like men, given respect and, at the same time, expected to take responsibility for ourselves. I believe it’s an approach every England player has responded to.

  Despite it being only an exhibition, there was a definite buzz in the air at Villa Park– this was the start of something new, wasn’t it?—and we beat Spain 3–0. We all knew that the first real test would be the next World Cup qualifier. After losing to Germany and then drawing in Helsinki, the game against Finland at Anfield was pretty much win or bust. If we didn’t take the three points for the win, we were going to have a real problem getting to the play-offs, never mind qualifying automatically by topping the group. This was a genuinely competitive game and we needed to come up with a result as a team. Personally, as the new England captain, I felt I needed to come up with something too.

  Even before the kick-off, things felt completely different. The stakes were so much higher: it wasn’t just me who was really hyped up. We were just starting to take England games to different club grounds around the country after Wembley had closed down. Everybody knew the atmosphere would be great at Anfield, although nobody was quite sure what kind of reception the United players would get at Liverpool’s home ground. We shouldn’t have worried. Whether they were Liverpool supporters or fans from around the country, the sound of the crowd chanting my name before kick-off made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It was great for me personally, but, much more important, it gave you the feeling that everybody had rallied round England and rallied round Sven.

  Early on, we were flying. We created lots of scoring chances. There was a great energy in the team. Passes went where they were supposed to go. It felt really good. And then Finland scored. The ball bounced past Dave Seaman off Gary Neville’s knee, a lucky goal, but it meant we were 1–0 down. Oh, no. Not again.

  Then Michael Owen got an equalizer just before half-time from Gary’s cross, which meant we went into the dressing room feeling pretty upbeat about our chances. Confident even, although I know our supporters probably weren’t. We came back out for the second half and I got what turned out to be the winner. The ball came across from the left to the back of the penalty area and my first touch took it down at an angle that made shooting the easy option. I swung at it, the shot took a deflection off a defender and the ball flew into the far corner: my first goal for England from open play. I spun round and the first person I saw was Teddy Sheringham, warming up on the touchline. I launched myself, and jumped on his back celebrating. Dave Seaman made a great save towards the end. He always seemed to do that in the really big games. But my goal was the winner, which made it even sweeter.

  We had to beat Finland just to give us a chance. Germany in Munich was five months away and we knew we had to keep ourselves in the hunt, at least, until then. We had qualifiers in Greece and Albania and exhibitions, too, ahead of us. Now was the time to find out about ourselves as a team. Sven trusted the young players he’d inherited from Peter Taylor—a whole generation, really, mid-twenties and under—and gave us the time and the games to build up our confidence. Over those early months there was a bit of a United feel about how things developed. There still is. And I don’t just mean because of myself and Gary, Phil, Butty and Scholesy.

  It’s hard to tell exactly what brings a successful group together. There’s the obvious: good players, good coaching, good management.

  To turn individuals into a team, though, something else needs to happen, especially at international level where the players come from clubs all over the country. Being together, playing together and winning and losing games together all make a difference. An international coach has to try and make it possible for a side to develop despite injuries, dips in club form and how little time the England team has together apart from the few days before matches. The players have done their bit and, like I’ve said, maybe the age of the squad helped. But Sven deserves some of the credit, at least, for creating a better team spirit than I can remember us ever having had with England before.

  There have been times in the past when we’d meet up and you knew who would be with who straight away. Cliques were in place along the lines of the senior and younger players or according to rivalries between clubs. It’s a natural thing to stick with your mates. We were as bad as anybody: the United lads used to be famous for keeping to ourselves. So much of that has changed now. I’d say there’s a real bond, a real mutual respect, amongst the current England squad and that makes a difference when we go out and play. We could all feel it starting to happen within months of Sven taking charge. The new manager treated us like grown ups, gave us respect and responsibility and demanded the same in return.

  I remember the 4–0 exhibition win against Mexico at Pride Park, in between qualifying games in the Spring of 2001. There was a moment in that game that summed up the new spirit in the England camp. Quite early on, one of the Mexican defenders barged into me from behind. It wasn’t too serious: I just limped away and got on with it. But within about a minute, Stevie Gerrard had gone flying into this same player—legally, he played the ball first—and left him rolling around on the floor. Looking after your mates: it’s an attitude I knew well enough from United. It’s an attitude you’ll see in every team that wins games and trophies.

  We beat Greece in Athens and Albania in Tirana, which at least made us favorites to finish second and qualify for a play-off to reach the World Cup Finals the following summer. To win the group and go through to Japan and South Korea automatically, we knew we’d have to win in Munich. And, even though things had been going well under Sven, I don’t think there were too many people who fancied our chances of doing that. Nobody beats the Germans in Germany, do they? For once, expectations weren’t too high, so that took some of the pressure off us. We didn’t have to worry too much about letting the supporters down. The one person who’d said all along that he thought we could win the game was the manager. Sven’s never one for talking big to the press before games but, since taking over, every time he’d been asked about the Germany game, he’d said that he thought we were good enough to win. Maybe his confidence, over the months and, then, in the days leading up to the game on the first of September, found its way into the players’ own minds without us even realizing it.

  Whatever the reason, by the time we were sitting down to dinner at the hotel in Munich on the Friday night before the game, I found myself looking around and listening to conversations and wondering if I could ever remember being with an England team that seemed in such a positive state of mind. I had my own doubts about the game, but they were to do with whether or not I’d be fit to play. I went up to my room later and spoke to my mate Dave Gardner. He asked me how I thought we were going to get on. The couple of hours with the rest of the players had convinced me.

  ‘I think we’re going to win.’

  The silence at the other end of the line told me there wasn’t the same kind of confidence back at home. But I wouldn’t have said it to Dave if I hadn’t believed it. And I wanted to be part of what I thought was going to happen. I was worried that a groin injury I’d picked up p
laying for United against Aston Villa the week before wasn’t going to heal in time. It had turned out not to be as bad a tear as I’d thought when it first happened, so I’d joined up for England training with the rest of the lads although I wasn’t fit enough to train with them. I had a week on my own, getting treatment, hoping for the best and hating every minute of it. Being captain made it even worse: I wanted to be involved in everything. Instead, the first time I was able to work with everybody else was at the stadium, late in the afternoon before that Friday night dinner.

  I went out half an hour early with Gary Lewin and Alan Smith from the England medical team to check my fitness: running, turning, hitting dead balls. It’s a strange feeling, even more so with a place in the team for such a big game at stake. You want to stretch yourself to make sure you’re strong enough to play and won’t let anybody down. At the same time, you can’t help but hold back a little because you don’t want to breakdown at the last minute and miss out on your chance. Anyway, Gary and Alan were happy and gave me the all-clear to join in with the main session. It felt great: the rest of the squad were in such good form. I found myself wishing we could have a go at the Germans there and then.

  I was almost waiting for the nerves to start jangling but the lads were just as confident over breakfast as they had been over dinner the night before and, even an hour before kick-off in the dressing room, everyone seemed calm and relaxed. We went out to warm up and everything seemed right. Everything, that is, apart from my injury. I still wasn’t sure. I knew I wanted to play but I knew I had to do what was best for the team. Those few minutes running and stretching, though, made all the difference and I came back in convinced I could make it. When the time came, in the minute or two before the bell rang to tell us to go out for the game, Sven sat everybody down. What he had to say was pretty simple but tapped into everybody’s mood: