WAS his journey really necessary? Franco Baldini, assistant manager to Fabio Capello, made a round trip of nearly 10,000 miles to Dallas, Texas, on Saturday evening where he assessed the fitness of the former England captain David Beckham.

At stake is the not inconsiderable prize of Beckham’s 100th cap, a mark he could potentially reach in Paris on March 26th with Capello due to name his squad for the friendly with France on Thursday.

However, quite how significant a part Baldini’s scouting report of the 0-0 draw will play in that process remains open to debate.

Beckham was appearing for his LA Galaxy team at FC Dallas in a pre-season charity game benefitting Unicef, a game scheduled to appease Texan football fans disappointed that the Englishman missed a league game here last season due to injury.

It is safe to say that Pizza Hut Park has experienced few occasions like this in its two and a half year history - given a 20,500 sell-out, ticket touts were even spied for the first time at the purpose-built soccer stadium.

Beckham’s every touch was cheered by the home supporters, gasps greeting his set pieces and right-wing crosses, although the historic nature of Beckham’s first appearance in Dallas must have been lost on Baldini.

He was also embroiled in minor controversy, booked in the 86th minute for arguing with a linesman and subsequently involved in a long-running verbal battle with Dallas’ Andre Rocha. Presumably, the phrase “Who do you think you are?” figured in the Brazilian’s rant at Beckham.

But it was presumably not necessary for the Italian to spend 20 hours on a plane over the weekend to discover that Beckham can still deliver a superb set-piece, by far his greatest contribution to the flow of the game.

With Dallas manager Steve Morrow, the former Arsenal utility man employing a three-man back line, there was also the room for a player of his guile and calibre to unleash the occasional, long searching pass - a 50-yard effort to US international Landon Donovan the pick of that bunch.

But was any of this news to Baldini, or Capello? It has long since been obvious that Beckham’s best role in European football would be that of an American football style specialist, brought on purely to take set pieces.

Aside from that, the blindingly obvious, Beckham showed decent staying power and the occasional sprint demonstrated that a pre-season tour that has seen him play five times in Hawaii, South Korea and Hong Kong has not dulled his fitness.

If Beckham was left out of Capello’s first squad, against Switzerland, because his close season globetrotting left him woefully short of match fitness, Beckham’s recent itinerary has clearly rectified that problem. It is safe to assume, also, that the month Beckham spent training with Arsenal has helped provide him with a decent fitness foundation.

“I was over there in England and met with Arsene Wenger recently,” said Morrow. “And a few people there talked to me about him. I think the Arsenal players had a laugh giving him a hard time! But they also said he was in very good shape and trained very well.”

As for the game itself, an affair that did little for those critics of the standard of football for which Beckham has signed up, the Englishman came closest to breaking the deadlock with a superb 85th minute pass which found Donovan for a chip that was well saved by Dario Sala.

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