Beckham (41 page)

As if the team play wasn't good enough, Luis Figo scored an impossible goal early on to give Real the lead. He was about 25 yards out, on the left wing, maybe fifteen yards short of the byeline. I remember looking over and thinking:

‘That's a good position for a cross.'

But a cross wasn't what Figo had in mind. He took a little pass from Zidane, checked back and then hit it right-footed, all power and swerve, over Fabien Barthez and in under the bar at the far post. You're happy if you've got one or two players who'll do something like that for you: Real have got half a dozen. I know the manager rates Raul as the best center-forward in the world: Ruud van Nistelrooy would probably get sixty goals in a season playing alongside him. At the Bernabeu, Raul scored either side of half-time. We looked shot to pieces.

But United don't lie down for anybody. That's the boss; that's Keano and that's anybody who wants to play for the club. I talked to people afterwards who were watching on television. They said that, at 3–0, it looked like it was going to be 7 or 8 the way Madrid were playing. But
we kept getting our tackles in when we could; kept trying to pass the ball when we had it and, eventually, we got our goal. Ruud deserved it: when we'd been under pressure, he'd been playing their back four on his own. At 3–1, with an away goal, we had half a chance. Right at the end, I missed one that would have made it 3–2. That really would have given us something to chase at Old Trafford. When the game ended, I was looking down at the field, catching my breath and putting a hand to the back of my leg, which was starting to tighten up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roberto Carlos coming towards me. He was smiling. I straightened up and looked at him. Now, he was laughing. I didn't have a clue what about. There was something a little crazy about the moment. I didn't know what to say or do. I smiled back as we shook hands. I could hear the camera shutters clicking and I remember thinking:
That won't make a very good picture back in Manchester.

The manager didn't say much afterwards. We'd all had enough nights in Europe together to have a pretty good idea what had gone wrong. There was no need for him to lay into us. What mattered was that we get ourselves up for the second leg.

Paul Scholes and Gary Neville were pretty low. They'd both got yellow cards and were going to be suspended for the game in Manchester. I felt bad for Scholesy. He'd missed out on the European Cup Final at the Nou Camp in 1999 because he'd been suspended for that as well. He's intense about his soccer, passionate about playing for United. Real at Old Trafford was another huge game. I've been playing soccer with Scholesy half my life, for United and for England. Think about the two of us, as people, and you'd probably say we've not got much in common. Paul's quiet. He's so private that the other lads are always giving him grief about it. The rumor is that he turns off his cell phone straight after training and doesn't turn it on again until he's five minutes from Carrington the next morning. And as for his home number, he's given it out to so few people down the years he's probably forgotten what it is himself.

Scholesy's always just kept his head down and got on with soccer. I don't know a Premiership player, apart from him, who hasn't got an agent. Actually there's quite a few things that set Scholesy apart. He's an amazing one-touch player, who scores all the goals from midfield any manager could ask for. Plus he's got a temper as scary as Keano's or the boss's once he gets going. Like I say, we played through some history together at United and I hope we'll play through some more with England over the next three or four years. I've always got on well with Paul but you're never going to have a dressing room full of people who want to go out to dinner with each other every night.

After the final whistle at the Bernabeu, we went down to say thanks to the United fans. The club competes in the Champions League season after season. I wonder sometimes how people find the time or the money. They do, though. There are Manchester United fans in Europe in their thousands wherever and whenever the team play. I was hobbling a bit by then and when I got back to the dressing room, I was on the treatment table for a long while. The hamstring was really sore. It kept me out of the team for the Premiership match against Newcastle the following Saturday. I was frustrated about it but there was nothing I could do. It meant I missed the game that put the stamp on our season. I think winning 6–2 at St James' Park was the result that pushed us on to winning the League. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came in and did really well in place of me.

I was back training with everybody else first thing on Monday morning. We were away to Arsenal on the Wednesday night: as far as the Premiership goes, the biggest match of the season. We'd got ourselves into a position where, as long as we didn't lose to Arsenal, it would be very difficult for them to catch us over the last four or five games. The way we were feeling, we thought we'd win every game until the end of the season anyway. I was pretty confident I'd play. I knew I was fit enough. No manager likes to change a winning team and 6–2 away was definitely a winning team. Even so, the boss had usually brought
me back into the United side after games missed because of injury. I felt I was part of his best eleven. I didn't find out otherwise until the day of the game. We were having our pre-match meal. The manager came and sat next to me:

‘I'm starting with Ole. I can't change the team.'

I couldn't help but be disappointed, but I didn't feel like an argument over it. I wasn't happy but the manager was doing what he thought was best. My job was to sit on the substitute's bench and be ready.

Because of the speculation about my future, people pointed to the boss leaving me out as proof things weren't right between us. As far as I was concerned, though, I was a United player, and me not playing against Arsenal wasn't going to change that. It was a strange night: not much of a game when you compared it to the stuff that had been played in Madrid, by both sides, the previous week. But it had all the tension and drama anybody could have asked for. Ruud scored. Thierry Henry scored twice and then Giggsy equalized. At the end, the gaffer went running onto the field, punching the air. He's always loved beating them and I think he knew the 2–2 was just what we needed. I remember being in the tunnel afterwards. Gossip gets round players as well and the rumors hadn't really stopped since the last time we'd played Arsenal, back in February up at Old Trafford. I remember Thierry Henry walking past me and raising an eyebrow:

‘What's the matter? Why weren't you playing?'

Then he laughed:

‘You can come and play for us if you like.'

I laughed too.

The boss was really pleased with what had happened. I actually remember him saying, particularly, how well he thought Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had played. Even so, come the Saturday and home to Blackburn, Ole was on the bench and I started a game for the first time since we'd been beaten in Madrid. Blackburn were on a really good run and played well but we won 3–1. I was happy to be back in the
team and happy with how I played. But something still didn't feel right. The obvious picture was that I was fit again and the manager had wanted to give me a game before the second leg against Real the following Wednesday. Everybody assumed I'd be playing in United's biggest match of the season. Except me. Over the weekend I became more and more convinced the manager was going to leave me out for the second leg. I talked to some mates about it. They all said the same thing:

‘No chance. You'll play. It doesn't matter what's gone on, you'll play.'

In the couple of days leading up to the Madrid game, I did my best to concentrate on our preparations like everyone else, but the thought that I was going to be dropped just nagged away at me like a sore tooth. Gary and I always used to joke that we'd learned how to tell—from how the boss was behaving towards us—if he was getting a shock ready for us.

‘He was nice to me yesterday. So he's going to leave me out of the team tomorrow.'

That instinct, after so many years working with him, told me that the boss's manner leading up to the Wednesday night was all wrong as far as my chances were concerned. No harsh words no little digs: it was as if I wasn't even there. Out at training on the morning of the game, the manager pulled me to one side. He just said what he had to say, and what I knew he was going to say:

‘David, you're not going to start tonight. You'll be on the bench.'

I flinched. Although I'd been expecting it, to hear the boss say that was like being hit between the shoulder blades. It suddenly felt as if the whole of the season had been about him building up to doing this to me. I was on the outside looking in.
Real Madrid: an important game, son. Too important for you to play in.
I could taste the anger and the disappointment in the back of my throat. Sometimes, your feelings are so confused and so complicated you're frozen to the spot. I looked at the manager, tried to look into his eyes: nothing there for
me. I shook my head, turned round, and began walking back to the dressing room.

‘David. Come back here. Don't walkaway from me.'

The boss didn't shout. He didn't lose his temper. It was as if he was asking me, not telling me,
David, please come back. I want to finish what I was saying.

As if there was anything that needed to be said. I just kept walking. Thinking back to that scene now, I'd say that if the manager had still cared about me as a person or as a player, we'd have had an argument there and then. He wouldn't have let me walkaway from him like that.

It was different for me. I had to keep going, to make sure I didn't say or do anything that I'd regret later. I was a professional soccer player, with responsibilities to myself and to the club. I needed to behave like one, not make things worse.

When I found out the starting eleven, frustration made way for disbelief. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had done really well playing in my place off and on during the season. If I stepped back from my own disappointment for a moment, I could understand the manager picking him ahead of me. Which of us would be the best choice to start against Madrid came down to a matter of opinion and it would be a manager's job to make the judgement. I could see, after how he'd been playing, it would be hard to leave Ole out. He's been so patient in his time at United, game after game as a sub. No-one could say Ole hadn't earned his chance. What I couldn't believe—and what made me sure that the manager was leaving me out for personal rather than soccer reasons—was seeing Juan Sebastien Veron's name on the teamsheet. Don't get me wrong. Seba and I get on really well and I think he's a marvelous player. I'd never resent him getting a game ahead of me. But what was the boss thinking? Seba had been out injured for seven weeks. He'd trained for just a couple of days: hadn't even been fit enough to be a sub against Blackburn four days before. But, for the biggest game of the season, he was in ahead of me. Nine months of what felt like hard
knocks and, now, the hardest of the lot. I was shatterd by it: my soccer world snatched from under my feet.

I went in and got changed without saying anything to anybody. Most of the other lads were already heading off to have lunch. I went out to the car. I had to let Tony Stephens know what had happened: it felt to me as if this was something that would make staying at United more difficult. For the first time in my life, I wondered if playing soccer somewhere else might be better than playing it here. I needed to let someone know how upset and angry I was. Tony couldn't believe what I had to tell him. He said that trying to behave as if everything was fine was the right thing to do: sit on the bench and be ready when I got the chance. He was sure this could all still be an opportunity for me. I can't say I was as confident as Tony sounded but talking to him calmed me down a bit at least. I rang Victoria.

You look to your wife for support and what do you get? From Victoria, I always seem to get just what I need. It was another of those times when the pressure was becoming that intense I wasn't sure I knew how to handle it. Like during the build-up to the game against Argentina in Sapporo. Since that boot had hit me, my situation and my future had been talked and written about to the point where I was getting suffocated by it all. You know you're in trouble when you start to think: well, maybe they're right. Even when you're the person it's happening to and you actually know that they're wrong. Victoria understood how much playing against Madrid meant to me. She knew why I thought, after the injury at the Bernabeu, I had to play—and play well—at Old Trafford. So Victoria let me talk and then said her bit:

‘So you're on the bench. Well, don't forget to take your Preparation H out there with you. You spend more time sitting on that bench than you do playing. Hemorrhoids will be next.' ‘Eh?'

‘And make sure you keep a smile on your face so, if the camera's on you, nobody will know there's anything wrong.'

We laughed, both of us. She meant what she said. She was telling me just to get on with it, which I knew was what I had to do. But she's the only person in the world who could have said it to me the way she did. Victoria brought me back to the real world. It didn't matter, the day of a game, how I was feeling. What mattered was that the team beat Real Madrid. By the time I got back to Old Trafford, I'd got a lid on the morning's emotions. I got changed, went out for the warm-up with the rest of the lads. Walked round the dressing room, shaking hands and wishing my mates good luck. And then got a sweatshirt on, made my way along the touchline from the tunnel and climbed the flight of stairs to squeeze in alongside the other subs. The seven of us sat tight and watched United start the job of trying to come back from a two-goal deficit against the best team in Europe. We sat and watched. And I waited.