by David Beckham has been given the official role of England player liaison at the World Cup in South Africa, and will be responsibly for ensuring that just about every message between the players and management arrives garbled and misunderstood.
The role is part of Capello’s plan to utilise Beckham’s tournament experience, but after speaking English for under two years, Capello is said to be completely unaware of Beckham’s limitations as an effective orator.
One FA insider said, “We did warn Fabio, but he was insistent that Beckham would have an important role to play. I’m kinda intrigued to see how this all plays out.”
Early signs have not been good, with the entire squad arriving for this morning’s first training session wearing sarongs.
Emile Heskey told reporters, “David told us the manager wanted him to ensure we were as relaxed as possible, which as far as he understands it, means putting on women’s clothing. It’s a message from the gaffer, what are we supposed to do?”
“I think I look quite good on me actually, but Rooney looks like a bull dressed as a man, dressed as a woman.”
Confusion
There is speculation that using Beckham as a go-between will lead to many of the manager’s tactical messages being dumbed down considerably.
Former England player Terry Butcher explained, “If Capello and his coaches have an in-depth tactical discussion in Italian, they will dumb down the instructions slightly when translating them to English, before dumbing them down some more into Beckham-English.”
“The message will be dumbed down even more inside Beckham’s head, only for the final phase of dumbing down to take place as the message leaves his mouth.”
“This is how a Capello’s tactical instruction for Wayne Rooney to ‘hold his run in behind the full back until he’s isolated from his centre-half and Gerrard has free possession in the middle third’, easily becomes David Beckham standing at the side of the pitch screaming ‘Run!’ in Rooney’s general direction.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
