Was ever such a soaring edifice of mutual congratulation and optimistic speculation built on the defeat of opponents incapable of scoring a single goal in 10½ hours of football? Instant reactions to England’s 3-0 victory over Estonia in their Euro 2008 qualifying match on Wednesday night seemed healthily infected by restraint. But within a day perspective had been chased into hiding and laurel wreaths were being freely distributed, presumably with a designer version, diamond-studded, for David Beckham.

Suddenly the land was loud with the din of traded compliments. All the problems that had gathered like an accusing mob during Steve McClaren’s first season in charge of the national squad appeared to have been shrunk to manageable inconveniences by the result in Tallinn, or rather by that and the profound omens many were ready to attach to the recalling of Beckham to his country’s service.

From a broad swathe of the media there came the strong impression that England’s prospects of reaching the European finals in Austria and Switzerland next June, and of flourishing there, had been transformed by one player. Continued progress, we were made to understand, was likely to hinge on the answers to two or three questions: would his future employers at Los Angeles Galaxy release football’s most expensive box-office attraction for international duty on this side of the Atlantic (there was immediate reassurance from California) and could he turn up fit and sharp in spite of performing at a comparatively moderate level of competition and having to withstand the wearing effects of commuting from America’s west coast?

Just how urgently those issues were assumed to be preoccupying the nation was indicated when one serious newspaper required its science editor to provide an advice panel on jet-lag that incorporated a couple of personalised hints for Beckham. Power-napping was the recommended means of preventing his body-clock from going haywire. By that stage, however, some of us were beginning to feel dislocated not from a familiar time zone but from basic reality, and we were in need of more than a snooze. The realisation of how much was being inferred about England in general and Beckham in particular from events at the A.Le Coq Arena in midweek made the mind reel.

To be fair, the justification for McClaren’s decision to revoke a rejection of the former captain that had sounded close to terminal at the time originated in the lively, effective form Beckham has been showing for Real Madrid. Yet there can be no doubt the fever currently surrounding claims that his return can have a galvanising impact on England all the way through the summer of 2008 and beyond owes a great deal to his recent displays against Brazil and Estonia.

And that is where caution is demanded, since neither of those engagements could be regarded as a reliable context in which to judge collective or individual performances. McClaren’s men did well in both games, and Beckham’s work was especially praiseworthy, but every tribute must be tempered by awareness that the Brazilians are incorrigibly unwholehearted in friendly fixtures and Estonia are as lamentably inadequate as seven lost qualifying matches without an entry in the goals-for column would suggest. In fact, once in action the Estonians proved to be even more feeble than they had looked on paper. Everybody knew their capacity for attack was negligible but on Wednesday their defending, too, was dire. Perhaps they had been physically drained by restricting Croatia to a one-goal win four days before facing England. That was certainly the charitable explanation for the prairies of space granted to the English, and most damagingly to Beckham.

When the ball was switched to him wide on the right in the preamble to the third goal, his nearest opponent was a minimum of 15 yards away. He had as much time and comfort to execute a centre as would have been afforded by a free kick, and the bonus of knowing Estonia couldn’t muster the pretence of organised resistance that would have greeted a dead-ball delivery. The angled cross duly found Michael Owen and he, unhampered, rediscovered the pleasure of scoring he has so long been denied. Earlier, Beckham’s assist for the second goal was a beautifully flighted pass but any normal defence would have been expected to close uncompromisingly on the ball as it bounced high in the penalty area. Instead Peter Crouch was happily isolated and able to rise at his leisure to steer in a firm, skilful header.

Those are facts difficult to reconcile with the popular view that England and Beckham are back in profitable business. When will the most refined, relentlessly precise right foot in the game next have the extraordinary freedom to operate that it was allowed in Tallinn? Dead-ball opportunities will always make him potent but if confronted by tactical shrewdness and the smothering attentions of energetic markers, will his threat in open play be ultimately as inconsequential as it has been at the finals of five major tournaments?

Had Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole been fit, England’s lineup in Estonia would have been exactly the same as was fielded against Paraguay at the start of Sven-Göran Eriksson’s doomed campaign in the 2006 World Cup. So much for the new dawn promised by McClaren. Maybe the dearth of alternatives excuses the march forward to the past. But last week’s celebratory noises didn’t quite convince that the journey will be glorious.

Fredalo farce sinks Vaughan

Whatever people think about the effectiveness of electronic technology as an eradicator of injustices in the heat and flurry of sporting action, it is undeniably a wonderful tool for sorting out right from wrong when the exchanges are merely verbal. Donald McRae of The Guardian will vouch for that.

McRae was landed in a predicament all reporters dread when he was accused of misquotation in his account of an interview he had conducted with Michael Vaughan, the England cricket captain. The interview dealt with the notorious nocturnal episode in which Freddie Flintoff and several teammates frolicked drunkenly with a pedalo in the Caribbean during the World Cup in the West Indies. Vaughan didn’t object to being identified with the suggestion that the oafish escapades had damaged England’s morale severely and harmed their chances of making a respectable World Cup challenge but he claimed the effect of what he said was crucially distorted by the insertion of the term “Fredalo”, which he insisted he had never used.

Enter the technology. The Guardian released a tape of the conversation with McRae on the newspaper’s website and the captain was heard mentioning Fredalo not once but twice. The whole embarrassing sequence is worth recounting because Vaughan’s misrepresentation of the facts amounted to something much worse than a wimpish retreat from what had struck many of us as an admirably honest recognition of the need to confront famous, richly rewarded sportsmen with the reality that they cannot pass off a shameful abdication of their professional responsibilities as laddish fun. Had he adhered to that stance, applause would have been his due. But instead, having found himself embroiled in fierce controversy for daring to criticise a national hero, he reached for an excuse that impugned the integrity and competence of a professional from another field.

That he was picking a well-favoured escape route was underlined when a younger England batsman, Alastair Cook, contributing to the very page of the Daily Telegraph that carried Derek Pringle’s clear exposition of the Fredalo saga, offered this profundity on Vaughan’s part in it: “I’m sure all that has happened is that he has been misrepresented. The media have a way of turning one story into another one.”

There are certainly cases where that charge would stick. But as a generalisation it stinks. In future, Michael Vaughan is going to feel much more uneasy about playing the honesty card than Donald McRae will.

No more Mr Nice Guy

Joey Barton’s planned move from Manchester City to Newcastle United is being held up by a dispute with City over his demands for a “loyalty payment” of £300,000.

It sounds like a pretty tame confrontation by the standards usually associated with Barton, who has been known to stub out a cigar in a companion’s face and is at present suspended on full pay (and is on police bail) following a training ground incident that left his teammate Ousmane Dabo needing hospital treatment. City have already found Barton’s hooligan ways expensive. But it’s hard to sympathise with them. They paid for his anger management treatment without insisting on the provision of a cage.