The countdown to the end of the David Beckham era at Real Madrid has begun, a
mix of high suspense and fond elegies. On Thursday evening there was a small
get-together with some of his closer friends from the squad at a favoured
restaurant just outside the Spanish capital, and the presentation of an
engraved silver tray thanking him for the memories, telling him he would
always have a home in Madrid. Beckham likes to think it will not be the only
piece of silverware he takes to Los Angeles from Spain.
Madrid sit top of the table this morning, there by the slimmest of margins - a
superior head-to-head record - over the defending champions, Barcelona, and
there for the first time since October 2005. “I want the league title before
I go,” Beckham says, “and I'm sure we can get it now.” Four fixtures remain,
and it may yet become even tighter. In the course of three staggered games
between four and 10 o’clock tonight, the leadership of La Liga could shift
between three different clubs, Madrid, Barça and Sevilla, several times. By
the end of the day, all three might even be tied on points.
Madrid, the new favourites, go to Recreativo Huelva, with Beckham expected to
return to the starting XI after a one-match suspension, his place in a
stirring revival of seven wins from Madrid’s past eight league games secured
by having set up goals in two of the past five victories. Amid the
overheated local media enthusiasm for a prize that three months ago seemed
impossibly distant, he finds his final days as a Madrid player being
serenaded as if he were royalty. One high-profile column-ist-cum-courtier,
Tomas Ron-cero, wrote in yesterday’s sports daily, As: “Sir Beckham [sic]
deserves to bid farewell on June 17 at the Bernabeu with a league title in
his travel bag and the whole stadium on their feet saluting the dignity and
sense of hon-our he has given to this institution. King David, impeccable
professional, good guy and magnificent footballer.” Thus do Spain’s redtops
roll out a red carpet.
Lauded though he is, Beckham will not be Madrid’s player of the season, having
not been selected consistently in the autumn and then ostracised by head
coach Fabio Capello for a month in the new year when he had signed his July
commitment with the American club Los Angeles Galaxy. Besides, Madrid’s
footballer of the year almost has to be Beckham’s former Manchester United
colleague, Ruud van Nistelrooy. He has scored almost two of every five
Madrid goals this season, is on course to finish as La Liga’s highest
scorer, and a long-shot to carry off the Golden Shoe for the best striker in
domestic football across Europe. But the most fetching evidence of Van
Nistelrooy’s high standards is not so much his contribution of 21 goals to
Madrid’s 55 so far in La Liga; rather, it is what he has made of scant
opportunities.
Surplus to requirements at Manchester United, Van Nistelrooy joined Madrid for
about £18m last summer. He had just turned 30 when he made his debut in
white and might have been forgiven for wondering if he might be 31 by the
time he received more than half a dozen good passes. Madrid’s football under
Capello has had many characteristics, but only in the past month could
qualities like swagger, flair or sustained possession be listed among them.
They have been for the most part a team interested in maximising opportunities
on the counter-attack. It follows that Madrid have been almost as effective
away from home as at the Bernabeu, winning as often on the road as on their
own territory. Nor, for his pragmatic, goals-on-the-break strategy, was
Capello interested in using the finest finisher on his staff, Ronaldo. The
Brazilian left for Milan in January; from then on Van Nistelrooy would be on
his own, partnered by the sporadically effective captain Raul - six goals in
31 games this term - and an ever-changing selection of aspiring number 10s
picked from among Robinho, Jose Antonio Reyes, Gonzalo Higuain, Guti and
Antonio Cassano. Even between them, those six together have fewer goals than
Van Nistelrooy.
Sevilla and Barça, meanwhile, have outscored Madrid comfortably, although a
dramatic, frenetic 90 minutes against Espanyol at the Bernabeu last weekend
at last gave madridistas their money’s worth. Espanyol had scored
three times in the first-half, Madrid once. They then came back in style,
managing their winner, and with it their leap to the top of the table, in
the 89th minute. Van Nistelrooy had contributed his 21st of the season to
begin the recovery and had an atypical day: six full shots at goal, three of
them requiring good saves. It would be the night on which he was most
spoiled as a Madrid centre-forward.
The statistics tell that story: Van Nistelrooy has learned to expect goal
chances to come to him only about once every 36 minutes as a Madrid player.
His 21 goals have arrived via a mere 85 attempts at the target. It is a
ratio notably superior to other leading goalscorers in the major leagues of
Europe. “It’s important that I’m there, where it hurts,” says the Dutchman,
“and I focus on that. Sometimes it’s difficult when you don’t get a lot of
balls, but you have to be there at the right time.”
Van Nistelrooy was always likely to appeal to Capello, whose signature on
joining new clubs has been to acquire an established centre-forward, often
regardless of age. As head coach of Milan in the mid1990s, he inherited
Marco van Basten and would acquire George Weah. His first spell at Madrid,
10 years ago, coincided with the emergence of a young Raul and the peaks of
Davor Suker and Predrag Mijatovic. When Capello went to Roma, he insisted on
Gabriel Batistuta: a league title followed. On joining Juventus, he
recruited Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who had a strong first season in Turin.
For Madrid, Van Nistelrooy has now matched his tally of league goals for
United last season, an unsatisfactory fifth campaign at Old Trafford that
would end unhappily. It would stretcha point to say the new Premiership
champions have missed the Dutchman, given United’s success and ample
distribution of goalscorers. But it might be said that the Premiership
misses the Van Nistelrooy sort of marksman. Its leading goalscorer, Didier
Drogba, scored 20 times in the league for Chelsea; Van Nistelrooy exceeded
that figure three times in his five United seasons, and equalled it once.
He remains the Van Nistelrooy once treasured at Old Trafford, and admired but
not often adored elsewhere, seldom appreciated for the beauty, quality or
invention of his game. His spectacular goals with Madrid have been few, save
the odd excellent volley and one rare effort from outside the penalty area,
one of the pair he scored in the turning-point 3-3 draw Madrid achieved at
Barcelona’s Nou Camp in March. He has been Madrid’s penalty taker, but not
as efficiently as he would have wished, with two failures from the spot this
season.
And only once this season has an old favourite Old Trafford connection yielded
dividends for Madrid: a Beckham pass, a Van Nistelrooy conversion.
In part, that’s to do with Beckham’s absences from the team. For the finishing
straight, Capello seems fixed on having the former England captain in his
lineup, most likely at outside right though today it may be in the centre of
midfield. It is crunch time in La Liga. Beckham has 360 minutes of top-level
club football in Europe left in his career; 360 minutes remain for Madrid to
record the four victories that would guarantee their first league title
since 2003. On Madrid’s sparse average, those 360 minutes mean 10 chances
falling to the feet or head of Van Nistelrooy. So far, it has been just
about enough.
The Golden Shoe 2006-07
The Golden Shoe goes to Europe’s top league goalscorer. Goals are given a
value according the standard of competition. In the Premiership, Primera
Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga goals are worth two points each. Goals in
Portgual and Holland are worth 1.5 points
Current rankings:
1 Afonso Alves SC Heerenveen (Hol) 34 goals (1.5pts per goal) Total:
51pts
Little-known Brazilian whose prolific form has put him in contention to lead
the line for his country against England next month
2 Francesco Totti, right AS Roma (It) 22 (2) 44
Captain of Serie A runners-up.
Thrived after being encouraged to play further forward
3 Ruud van Nistelrooy
Real Madrid (Sp) 21 (2) 42
Sold to Real by Manchester United in the summer. Adapted brilliantly and has
an impressive ratio of goals to chances
4 Didier Drogba Chelsea (Eng) 20 (2) 40
The powerful Ivorian has taken on with panache the responsibility of leading
Chelsea’s attack after the departure of Hernan Crespo to Italy and the poor
impact of Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko
4 Theofanis Gekas VfL Bochum (Ger) 20 (2) 40
Established his hotshot ability in the Greek first division, latterly with
Panathinaikos and joined Bochum on a complicated loan deal. May well stay in
the Bundesliga next season with Bayer Leverkusen
