Beckham to retire in 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/5405126.stm

Still only be 33.

Yeah but he's struggling to maintain the level isn't he.

we would he want to prolong the misery.. He is attacked contnousely by the UK press, dropped from the national team and now benched by Capello.. It is not like he is poor..

Thing is behind all the hype is a very nice guy.

I blame it all on Posh.

If he doesn't sort out his crossing soon, then he might as well go to the MLS at the end of the season. The thing with Beckham is that he's always been a very limited player, but he's had 4 major attributes to his game that have covered his deficiencies and made him into a great player.

-Unrivaled crossing. He was easily head and shoulders above everyone else in this department for a long time.

-Long distance shooting. He's scored loads of amazing goals from everywhere in the field.

-Free kick ability. Great free kick conversion ration.

-Great workrate. He's always tracked back and worked hard for the team.

The problem is that in the last 3 to 4 years, he has been losing these attributes one by one. For starters, he can never score from free kicks anymore. Everytime he tries to score now he either hits the wall or the ball goes way over the goal (just like Ronaldinho I guess). Before, when people saw Beckham taking a free kick, they expected him to score. He would at least come close nearly every time. Lately, he can only cross well from free kicks, which is still an attribute nevertheless. That's the only reason why he takes free kicks for Madrid.

His long distance shooting deserted him many years ago. I can't even remember him ever scoring a goal for Madrid from outside the area. He rarely even tries to shoot from far away.

This season, he hasn't even been able to cross properly. His crossing has been dreadful in every Madrid game. Without this last attribute, Beckham has become completely useless. All you're left with now is an incredibly limited player who works hard. That's simply not good enough.

So we'll see if Beckham sorts out his crossing, because his career surely depends on it.

agree torrent, should be his last year in a top league

Torrente wrote:If he doesn't sort out his crossing soon, then he might as well go to the MLS at the end of the season. The thing with Beckham is that he's always been a very limited player, but he's had 4 major attributes to his game that have covered his deficiencies and made him into a great player.

-Unrivaled crossing. He was easily head and shoulders above everyone else in this department for a long time.

-Long distance shooting. He's scored loads of amazing goals from everywhere in the field.

-Free kick ability. Great free kick conversion ration.

-Great workrate. He's always tracked back and worked hard for the team.

The problem is that in the last 3 to 4 years, he has been losing these attributes one by one. For starters, he can never score from free kicks anymore. Everytime he tries to score now he either hits the wall or the ball goes way over the goal (just like Ronaldinho I guess). Before, when people saw Beckham taking a free kick, they expected him to score. He would at least come close nearly every time. Lately, he can only cross well from free kicks, which is still an attribute nevertheless. That's the only reason why he takes free kicks for Madrid.

His long distance shooting deserted him many years ago. I can't even remember him ever scoring a goal for Madrid from outside the area. He rarely even tries to shoot from far away.

This season, he hasn't even been able to cross properly. His crossing has been dreadful in every Madrid game. Without this last attribute, Beckham has become completely useless. All you're left with now is an incredibly limited player who works hard. That's simply not good enough.

So we'll see if Beckham sorts out his crossing, because his career surely depends on it.

Easily the best post ive read about Beckham in a long time. Couldnt agree more with what you've said. in 1998-2002 he had all those attributes at a very high level, hence his status. Not anymore.

Nice guy, but his best days are behind him

Torrente - what about Raul? Is he similarly fading do you feel, or has he a lot to still give?

Beckham rejects retirement claim

Beckham is currently negotiating a new deal at Real Madrid
David Beckham's spokesman has denied the claim made by Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon that the player will quit in two years.
The 31-year-old former England captain is not a regular at The Bernabeu, but is currently discussing a new contract.

Calderon told BBC Radio Five Live: "As far as I know he has decided to retire in two years' time."

But a spokesman for Beckham said: "This is a complete surprise to us. No-one has ever discussed a retirement date."

The Real White Pele wrote:Torrente - what about Raul? Is he similarly fading do you feel, or has he a lot to still give?

Regarding Raul, he's definitely been on a downward slope for 3 years and counting. He had a half decent season 3 years ago, a bad season 2 years ago, and last season he was plain sh!t. No point in even mentioning the national team, where he went without scoring for nearly 5 years.

This season, his form from last season carried over with no signs of improvement. My view has been that this is Raul's last season to prove himself in Madrid. If he doesn't sort himself out, then I don't think it would be a bad idea to sell him. Not just for Madrid, but for his own sake. I have the belief that Raul would pick himself up if he goes to another team. It seems as if he needs a fresh challenge. His commitment is never in question though. He has Real Madrid running through his veins and he will be a legend no matter what happens in the last years of his career.

In the last 2 games he has shown signs that he could be on his way to hit top form again, but I'm only cautiously optimistic. He had a great game against Kiev, but Kiev are an awful team. He scored against Atletico, but didn't really do much besides that. It was an average performance but at least he scored. Regardless, these are improvement signs that hadn't appeared in a long time. You would think that a player as amazing as Raul would have to wake up sooner or later, though there have been cases where this hasn't happened (see Kluivert).

Top quality post Torrente

The thing about Raul is that he has been poor for the last 3 years but also have Real Madrid and so far this season he's started to regain his from

This is what is difficult to distinguish. How much of Raul's form is down to the poor state of the team? Zidane, over the last two seasons, was also a far cry of the Zidane we saw pre-2003; but when he went to France he played well again.

MB - A New Era wrote:
The thing about Raul is that he has been poor for the last 3 years but also have Real Madrid and so far this season he's started to regain his from

MB - A New Era wrote:Top quality post Torrente

The thing about Raul is that he has been poor for the last 3 years but also have Real Madrid and so far this season he's started to regain his from

Yeah, that's a good point. Raul's dip in form has certainly been a combination of many different factors, including the lack of team cohesion. Nevertheless, I still don't think that's an excuse for him. He has too much class to perform as badly as he has. His lack of form will always remain a mystery to me. It's definitely not a lack of ambition or commitment a la Kluivert, who became a lazy spoiled idiot.

Jaime wrote:This is what is difficult to distinguish. How much of Raul's form is down to the poor state of the team? Zidane, over the last two seasons, was also a far cry of the Zidane we saw pre-2003; but when he went to France he played well again.

MB - A New Era wrote:
The thing about Raul is that he has been poor for the last 3 years but also have Real Madrid and so far this season he's started to regain his from

Regarding Zidane, he was only amazing through stages, but he did have several memorable games in the last 3 years.

A big problem with Zidane was that he should have been rotated more often. He was played in nearly every game. I remember that 2 years ago he was already telling the press "to see the best Zidane I should play about 70% of the games but not all of them". He saw that his psysical condition had deteriorated and he couldn't play 60 games a season anymore. No coach listened to him so he kept picking up small injuries in the last 2 seasons and having several patches where he played quite badly.

I honestly think that if Zidane would have been rested every once in a while, we would have a lot more great games from him and he would have stayed with us for at least another season.

Torrente wrote:If he doesn't sort out his crossing soon, then he might as well go to the MLS at the end of the season. The thing with Beckham is that he's always been a very limited player, but he's had 4 major attributes to his game that have covered his deficiencies and made him into a great player.

-Unrivaled crossing. He was easily head and shoulders above everyone else in this department for a long time.

-Long distance shooting. He's scored loads of amazing goals from everywhere in the field.

-Free kick ability. Great free kick conversion ration.

-Great workrate. He's always tracked back and worked hard for the team.

The problem is that in the last 3 to 4 years, he has been losing these attributes one by one. For starters, he can never score from free kicks anymore. Everytime he tries to score now he either hits the wall or the ball goes way over the goal (just like Ronaldinho I guess). Before, when people saw Beckham taking a free kick, they expected him to score. He would at least come close nearly every time. Lately, he can only cross well from free kicks, which is still an attribute nevertheless. That's the only reason why he takes free kicks for Madrid.

His long distance shooting deserted him many years ago. I can't even remember him ever scoring a goal for Madrid from outside the area. He rarely even tries to shoot from far away.

This season, he hasn't even been able to cross properly. His crossing has been dreadful in every Madrid game. Without this last attribute, Beckham has become completely useless. All you're left with now is an incredibly limited player who works hard. That's simply not good enough.

So we'll see if Beckham sorts out his crossing, because his career surely depends on it.

What about his passing, in general?

Not many could strike a ball as well as he did. It's sad that he's still only 31 - and from a physical point of view, he never had any great pace, so it's weird that he's losing a lot of these attributes before he's 32. Especially compared to Ryan Giggs, who relied on pace an awful lot more on pace (despite also having more natural talent) than Becks ever did.

All in all, Ferguson was right to sell him in 2003. If he made the Decision to become "Posh's Footballing husband" rather than making his own promotional line, I doubt it would have come to this. He was a tremendous player, but the speed of his decline has shocked me.

@TeamSpirit™


His passing is quite bad as well. He hits about 10 long balls per game and only a few of them reach their destination. He did give a spectacular pass to Cassano against Levante, but that's the only one worth noting.

Personally, I don't think Ferguson should have sold Beckham. Given how ManU played at the time and with RVN as center forward, it made no sense to me that he got sold. His first 2 seasons with Madrid were also very good, even if he had lost some of his spark by then. I also don't think Beckham was as bad as some people claim in his last season in ManU. Beckham had a bit of a dip for a couple of months toward the end of the season, but he was playing great before that and proves Ferguson wrong once he played against Madrid in the 2nd leg of the CL tie. Solskjar's form on the right wing has also been greatly overrated. The guy was alright for a few games, but nowhere near Beckham's level.