Roll up, the boy is Beck in town
Those fed up with the hype, long before even the first leg, could be forgiven for black-heartedly hoping Beckham isn’t selected; after all, this kind of overpowering DB media circus was precisely what so many of us – Fergie included – were becoming so thoroughly sick of back in 2003. One idiot journalist even wrote in his San Siro match report that, had Becks been a mere sub, it would all have been a “damp squib” – yep, one of Europe’s most glam fixtures, producing a sensational five-goal thriller, would have been as nought in comparison to a benched Becks.
Yet the pull of nostalgia is hard to resist, and the lad has produced a seven-year itch that I am going to scratch anyway. Selling him in 2003 remains one of the key Fergie decisions of the decade, and one that was right, despite so many outraged pundits predicting doom.
