I am absolutely disgusted that David Beckham has been left out of the Great Britain Olympic football team. And I say that without a hint of exaggeration.

Stuart Pearce officially revealed his players for the tournament this week and there was no place for Beckham in the 18-man squad –a decision that was taken for‘football reasons’.

Looking at if from an outside perspective, you would probably go along with that. These days Beckham plays his football in a league with a much lower standard, is certainly past his prime and his form at the moment is nothing to write home about.

So yes, on merit he probably didn’t deserve to be picked.

But this decision shouldn’t have been entirely about merit. There was more to it than that, namely what David did to help win Britain the Olympics in the first place.

Without his effort in supporting London’s bid, there is a reasonable chance the games might not have been awarded to Britain.

The former Manchester United, Real Madrid and England star campaigned tirelessly on Britain’s behalf, carrying out his role as ambassador faultlessly. He gave up his time and energy to back a bid few people thought London would win.

That they did was, at least in some small way, down to his contribution. And the very least he deserved in return was the opportunity to represent his country at the games themselves.

He made no secret of his desire to do just that and I believe allowing him this opportunity for an international swansong on a big stage would have been a fitting and deserved reward for his efforts.

Am I being sentimental? Absolutely. But so what? It’s not like anybody takes Olympic football seriously anyway. Well apart from Stuart Pearce apparently.

It’s little more than a sideshow to the main events. Football has its own proper tournaments and doesn’t need to be part of the Olympics.

But that’s an argument for a different time. As it stands football is an Olympic event and Beckham should be taking part in it.

I have no doubt that the man himself, whatever he may be saying publicly, is heartbroken. And, to rub salt into the wound, his place in the team went to Micah Richards, a player so dedicated to his country he even refused to be on standby for England’s Euro 2012 squad.

I have a lot of respect for Stuart Pearce but he has got this decision very, very wrong. David Beckham, like Pearce himself in different ways, has given so much to his country over a long period of time.

This was the opportunity for his country to give him a little something back. That his country – or more accurately Stuart Pearce – didn’t feel it was necessary to do so is extremely sad and very, very wrong.

The reign in Spain continues…

Firstly allow me to offer my congratulations to Spain for their Euro 2012 triumph – they were worthy winners in the end and I would have to be rather stupid not to admit that.

When it really mattered they took their game to another level and blew apart an Italian team that looked jaded in comparison to their brilliant semi-final win over Germany. Possibly because of it, in fact.

Of course, the injury to Motta with half an hour to go ended the game as a genuine contest just when it looked like Italy may have an outside chance of clawing their way back into it.

But the truth is you felt there was only ever likely to be one winner from the word go and having 12 men on the pitch might not have been enough for Prandelli’s boys.

However, and this is a big however, I stand by my opinion last week that Spain’s brand of football is becoming rather dull.

When they first started playing their passing game I think we were all blinded by their brilliant ability to keep the ball. It was not something we had seen often, if ever, before and it was almost mesmerising in its fluidity.

However, several years and three consecutive tournament wins later, I would be lying if I said I didn’t now find it tedious. At random intervals during this tournament I found myself screaming at the television for the Spanish players to actually do something with the ball other than make sure their opponents didn’t have it.

And I am not going to change my opinion on that just because they found more of a cutting edge in the final.

Can you imagine if all teams played the Spanish way? We would end up watching two teams taking it in turns to play keep ball while we slowly lost the will to live.

I can’t deny that it is an effective approach to the game – two European Cups and a World Cup testify to that. But Greece’s methods in 2004 were also pretty effective and I don’t think many of us enjoyed watching them play.

I can assure you this isn’t a case of sour grapes either. Although the chances of England ever being able to play ‘Spanish football’ range from zero to nil, I genuinely wouldn’t want them to adopt that style.

Purists will laugh at me saying I know nothing about this refined and elegant version of football. And maybe they are right.

But I do know what I enjoy watching. Give me a game like Italy’s clash with Germany any day of the week. It beats the heck out of any of the matches Spain were involved in.

Rank outsiders

According to the latest FIFA rankings, England are now the fourth best football team on the planet. Better than Italy, better that Portugal, better than Argentina and better than Brazil.

And, in other news, a squadron of flying pigs has just been sighted over Comino.

How FIFA expects to be taken seriously as football’s governing body when it comes out with nonsense like this is a complete mystery.

The top two in the rankings are Spain and Germany and it is hard to argue with those. But from there down the list goes to pieces.

Even if you forget the ludicrous England placing, then what about Brazil down in 11th?

According to FIFA the five-times world champions are now only slightly (one place) better than Greece.

We are consistently told that these rankings are based on past performance, current performance and a whole load of weighting formulas that you would probably need a degree in advanced mathematics to understand.

However, I think the process is much simpler than that and involves a couple of low-level FIFA officials going out for a long liquid lunch and then picking names at random from a hat. While ordering another bottle of Limoncello.

Seriously though, whatever warped and twisted system they are using is clearly not working very well. It often, if not always, spews out random ranking nonsense which nobody takes very seriously.

They either need to get rid of the whole system or put it in the hands of Prozone or Opta, people who actually know a thing or two about football statistics.

Your say

“I have read last Sunday’s article over and over again and with all due respect it shows you clearly do not understand the Spanish way of playing football.

First of all, why call them arrogant and rude because they decided to play without a pure striker such as Llorente or Torres?

Questioning Del Bosque is one thing but calling a national team arrogant for deciding not to play the way you expected them to do is a totally different matter.

I do not know if you watched Barcelona play this year but Cesc Fabregas has played as a false 9 all season long and it worked to great effect for most of the time.

If you have not noticed, Cesc gets into positions that the strikers do not manage to do so as he understands Xavi and Iniesta better than anybody because he has been playing with them for a whole season, whereas Torres hasn’t.

In big matches where the opposing team will be marking the striker well, you need something different and the understanding the Barcelona players have between themselves is something that provides the team a goal out of nowhere such as Spain’s first goal vs Italy

Anyway, I agree with you that for two matches they were a bit boring but no team in the world can play brilliantly in all the matches.

In the end they saved the best for last and gave a footballing lesson to everyone in the world and I hope you realise that you made a mistake in your previous post.

Surely Spain are everything but arrogant and rude. They praise their opponents and respect them a lot, they just utilise their resources in the best possible way.”

Malachy Portelli, e-mail

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade