As an injured, ill and half-dressed David Beckham looked up from the chair in front of his locker as the Los Angeles Galaxy dressing room doors were opened to the media on Sunday night in Seattle, you could not help but feel a little sorry for the fella.
It's not often that one feels inclined to sympathy towards a multi-millionaire athlete. As if it is not enough to blessed by talents which, with more than a little application, can unlock the door to a lifetime of riches, they are seemingly handed a secret code that allows them to float through life somehow detached in splendid isolation from the rest of us mere mortals.
Once in a while, though, the masses burst the bubble and come tumbling chaotically through the barricades, as was the case at Qwest Stadium not 20 minutes after Beckham and the Galaxy had fallen to Real Salt Lake in a Major League Soccer title-deciding penalty shoot-out.
One of the wonderful idiosyncracies of American sport is the access afforded to the media by its rulers to some of the highest paid athletes on the planet in the most intimate of surroundings and adopted by MLS.
When Beckham arrived to great hullabaloo from Real Madrid in 2007, the Galaxy bent the rule a little, keeping the doors shut until the England midfielder had exited before presenting him at a press conference to answer questions.
Not so in Seattle. With captain Landon Donovan and coach Bruce Arena facing journalists in more formal surroundings, Beckham was left to the hordes.
As discarded socks, shorts, jerseys, towels and strands of tape littered the floor around him, a shirtless Beckham looked up to see a motley band of journos advancing on his personal space.
As he has done throughout his career, the 34-year-old took it all in his stride. He pulled on his expensive silk socks, buttoned up his designer shirt and picked up a washbag no doubt stuffed with grooming products of a combined value far in excess of the collected wardrobes currently being modelled by the assembled hacks and went in search of a secluded mirror to finish his preening and primping.
Once successfully groomed he good naturedly took questions with his usual courtesy, interspersed with a rasping cough to make any mother wince, not once betraying any disatisfaction at the situation.
“This feels very weird,” confessed a female British journalist as she took a sudden interest in the laundry items at her feet while other Galaxy players sauntered about in various states of undress.
But not half as weird as it must feel for Beckham, who must have yearned for the sanctuary of the Old Trafford dressing room, a place where the only threats to his privacy came from flying boots, flying pizza and a Ferguson-brand hairdryer.
