Beckham bullish on victory

THE mood was doggedly upbeat when England's bronzed captain David Beckham spoke of his ambitions of beating the champions France in tomorrow's fascinating match in Lisbon.

The sparkling diamond in his ear encouraged confidence, the easy smile bespoke an inner calm and the carefully couched responses said it all.

"We are here to win" he said to the persistent English press corps, "we respect France but we believe we are good enough to win."

Beckham's manager, Sven Goran Eriksson, pinpointed several reasons why he believed such an attitude was justified.

"We are better than two years ago" he said with reference to England's loss to Brazil in the World Cup in the Far East, "our preparations are better and the general fitness of the players is better. The atmosphere in the squad has been very, very good and for me that is very important."

Beckham and Eriksson are very much a team and the mutual respect between the pair is unambiguous and comfortably expressed.

First, Eriksson on his team captain: "He is fitter (than he was in Japan when he carried an injury). He looks very sharp and very, very focused."

Then a rhetorical question, "Did you know he did an extra training session on his own when we were finished yesterday? He wanted to put in an extra session on his own on free kicks and things.

"He looks forward to playing France and he is very, very important to us... as ever."

Beckham on Eriksson? "I think he's done a lot to the team since he came in, he's brought in a lot of young talented players who deserve to be in the team.

"I think he's very calm around the players, he's given the players a lot of confidence. You know when he's angry because he'll tell you but he will also praise you a lot when you need it.

"From the very first game when he came in he was very calm and relaxed and most of all what's important is that he gives the players a lot of confidence and that's the sign of a great manager."

A press conference with England is akin to an encounter with Hollywood. The level of respect in the room, the number of movie and still cameras, the multi-national gathering of media reps, all serve to highlight the importance of a media event so significant that Sky will break into their schedule to show it live!

A glance around the room quickly confirms that all the big-hitters from the daily newspapers are there but do they ask a question? Do they what.

No, it needed a quietly spoken, small-town reporter to disrupt the mood of mutual admiration.

What about the picture on the front page of the tabloid, he asked irreverently, the one that showed Beckham scratching himself ? "Yes, the FA were annoyed with that," he said, "it was a breach of our privacy. But I've lived with that type of pressure for 10 years, I'm used to it."

Eriksson has had his own pressure in a career that encompassed spells with Gothenburg in his native Sweden, Benfica in Portugal, Lazio, Roma and Sampdoria in Italy before he moved to England in January 2001.

He was not about to get upset about a newspaper's breach of protocol "I have been in England for three and a half years, I know what the press is and I think they are obsessed about certain things."

But what about having to face the champions in the first match tomorrow? What about having to survive against "Zizou" and Henry and Trezeguet and the dynamic French players who are intent, if reports are reliable, on wiping out memories of their fall from grace in the last World Cup?

How could England survive against a team who played 11 matches in recent times without conceding a goal, who have gone 18 matches unbeaten?

Beckham flashed that enigmatic smile and the battery of press photographers flashed their cameras in a flurry as he said: "Most of the talk has been about how good this French team is and rightly so.

"They are not a one or two-man team of Zidane and Henry because they have top-quality players all over the pitch. Zidane is an amazing player and nobody more than me knows that. It's a great honour to play with him and really tough to play against him. I really respect him."

Both captain and team coach were at pains to emphasise, however, that respect did not equate with fear or amount to a lack of ambition.

"It would be good to draw with the World champions" said Eriksson, "but with 90 minutes to play why not go out to win?"

Heavy on theory they both were, but light on fact. Yes, said Eriksson, John Terry would not be fit enough to play and that was a disappointment. But he should be ready for the second game.

Meantime he was not prepared to identity the player who would deputise. Eriksson seemed to suggest that Terry would automatically return in place of the expected sub, Jamie Carragher, or Ledley King. The thought never seemed to occur that Eriksson's attitude was, at once, a vote of no confidence in Terry's replacement or that his absence must therefore be a weakening of their position.

The fact is England will do well to survive and are probably lucky that their match against France is a first for both. The important thing for both is that they do not lose. In consequence a draw seems highly probable.

Meantime all is sweetness and light within the England camp.

Beckham said: "I like Portugal as a country personally. I've been here on holiday and I stayed over on the night England played Portugal.

"I like Portugal, the people are very nice, I enjoy it a lot and the weather is good and I'm used to that now."