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David Beckham Gives Up On Greatness

It's easy to knock David Beckham. It's also easy to be nice about him. It's easy to go over the top about him whether supporting or attacking him.

I should know. I am fighting lots of impulses in writing this article in the hope that I can make it an objective, balanced piece.

It is not easy because Beckham is a player who has always roused deep feelings within football fans and I am no different.

When it comes to a moment like this it is also easy to forget the great things he has done, the great moments he has provided us all with and simply remember the less enjoyable, more recent, times.

Basically, however, I am bitterly disappointed with his decision to take the highest paid early retirement in the history of the world.

This had been coming ever since last years' World Cup. Real Madrid obviously didn't want him anymore and Beckham was faced with a huge decision. Did he accept the biggest challenge of his career by trying to prove himself all over again in England just as his powers were undoubtedly starting to wane or did he accept a less taxing, and vastly better paid, environment over the pond.

I suppose his choice was inevitable although to the last I was hoping he would take the other one.

Okay the money's incredible, absolutely obscene in fact, but he's already made enough to allow Victoria all the plastic surgery she could ever want and still have change left over to have his three children cloned several times over and then genetically altered into all his favourite farmyard animals.

He is that rich.

He has guaranteed himself wealth beyond anyones' wildest dreams by moving to America on a five year contract with LA Galaxy but he has denied himself something which money can't buy and which I would have hoped was more important than a few more noughts on his bank balance.

He now has no chance of being considered a genuine footballing great.

That is my opinion anyway. It is possible to say that his years with Manchester United and about a three year spell with England when he was absolutely fantastic make him deserving of this accolade, but I think that would be being excessively generous.

Perhaps I am being harsh. After all, I have always been one of his biggest supporters and might feel somewhat let down by the way he never really imposed himself on world football with his actual performances and deeds in the way he seemed destined to.

I think we all should feel a little let down and disappointed by him. Perhaps no-one should feel more disappointed than Beckham himself.

Fair enough, he won everything several times over with Manchester United but so too did the Nevilles and Nicky Butt and they will hardly be remembered amongst the worlds' greatest players.

Not only did he not win anything as the leading member of England's so called "Golden Age" he began to look like someone more interested in their own image and concerns than genuinely fighting for the team cause.

Many people will argue that Beckham's time has passed so he is wise to move to the States while he is still good enough to turn on some exhibition magic for a new adoring audience. I think this is missing the point.

Sporting greatness does not simply come from outstanding performances and achievements. It is not simply the measure taken of competitors when they are at their best.

True sporting greatness can also be found in the efforts of those who continue to strive for excellence, for achievement and honours when they are beyond their best. Often these people leave the greatest legacy of all to their sports in what they pass on to those coming up after them who perhaps go on and even surpass them.

In all sports the champions of today can look back at what they have learnt from playing with and against the champions of yesterday and recognise the benefits they derived from the experience. Many will go on and pass the same things down to the champions of tomorrow.

Audiences too admire, respect and love these people over and above what is due to them simply as sportsmen and women.

This is what Beckham has denied himself. Fair enough, millions of new fans might come to worship him but, with all due respect to the game in the States, this is more about glitz and glamour than it is about football.

Beckham talks about raising the profile of the game in a country where it is still largely ignored despite being the number one paricipant sport amongst youngsters.

Fair enough, and you cannot question Beckham's commitment to encouraging youngsters everywhere to play and enjoy football. Of course he could have returned to Britain to help raise awareness here but the market is not quite so lucrative is it?

When the whole of America are sending their kids to David Beckham Football Summer Camps (and the girls who are too girly to be interested are going to Victoria Beckham Posh Spice Summer Camps) he will be an even more wealthy man.

What, though, as an Englishman would be his real sense of achievement in any of that? He could turn round and say he was bigger in the States than Pele but that won't matter. Pele was bigger where it mattered, at the World Cup.

He could point to sparking American interest in the game when they win the World Cup in 2022 but would he not rather England win it?

While two of his former colleagues are looking to pass on their experience and skills into the domestic game at Sunderland and Macclesfield Town he is heading for Hollywood.

It's no wonder his football began to suffer and you can't help but look back and say that Alex Ferguson got it right again when he dumped him at United, although I was not happy with the decision at the time and still wish he had stayed to be honest.

Surely you're not dealing with a footballer at all anymore when Madonna is quoted as saying it's a good thing and passing comment when he announces his latest move.

She never said a freaking word when Incey went to Macclesfield.

It's impossible to know what Beckham truly thinks, feels and desires but he is a wonderful footballer who must still have plenty of good football left in him and I cannot believe he has moved to the States for footballing reasons.

When he gave up the England captaincy he stated his intention of continuing to fight for a place and revealed his ambition of winning 100 caps.

In moving to America he has given up altogether on that ambition. Perhaps Steve MacLaren did tell him his international career was over but if he had come back to England and shown anything like his old United form he would have been impossible to ignore.

This is what a great footballer would have done and even if he had ended up thwarted in his ambitions he would have won a new found respect and admiration from fans up and down the country.

Instead he will probably be best, or at least last, remembered as the man who got too pally with an incompetent manager and led England astray in pursuit of his own whims at a time when there was a realistic opportunity for winning something.

As an England player he will also now be mainly remembered as the man who lost his head, fitness and bottle in major championships. Not the man who led us to glory as many of us expected.

Another characteristic of the true sporting great is a sense of timing and unfortunately Beckham also lacked this. We'll never know how well Pele and Maradona played in qualifiers and friendlies but we know they were pretty damn good in the real thing.

Beckham gave undoubtedly the best individual performance I have seen in an England shirt during my 30 years of watching when he singlehandedly got us a draw in the qualifier against Greece at Old Trafford in 2001, not just the goal, his performance was unbelievable.

Even though that was an important game it was not the real thing, however. Now Beckham is in a stage of his professional career where the real thing is not the World Cup anymore, it's the brand of fizzy pop he's paid to advertise.

If we're being honest it's been that way for a while.