England manager Fabio Capello must have exceedingly good sales skills if he managed to persuade Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti that taking L.A. Galaxy midfielder David Beckham on loan would be good for his team, writes Martin Samuel.
Samuel imagines the conversation as Capello, wanting to keep Beckham fit for possible international duty, persuaded Ancelotti into taking the player. “I see you together. I see it happening, I really mean that. What does he do? What doesn’t he do! He gives it simple, he keeps it tight, he starts wide, he comes inside, I’m telling you he goes with everything. Pace? Oh pace, schmace, pace is very last year, Carlo …”
Samuel notes that Milan got all the breaks in its 1-0 weekend victory over Napoli, which lost one man to a red card, two men to injury, and only conceded through an own goal. Milan missed “a wide player who would get beyond the line of defence, who would hug the flank and stretch the play.” What Milan doesn’t need is another player that starts wide and comes inside, like Kaká and Ronaldinho, or someone to join the “queue of midfield players who like to occupy the central ground.”
Samuel admits that Beckham’s move to Milan “works on a variety of levels. One can see what he gets out of it, certainly what Capello gets out of it, and what Milan take from it as a business. Even the Los Angeles Galaxy must reap some dividend if Beckham’s appearances in Serie A maintain his worldwide profile and, therefore, in a small way, that of Major League Soccer.” For England, Capello needs a player like Beckham to come on late and hold the ball to help the team hold a favorable result, or put in dangerous crosses against weak opposition. “For England, he brings a certain quality to the party, but even if he transports that to Milan, it is scarcely what they need.”