James Lawton: England's hopes not helped by the hype

Eriksson's team face a difficult enough task at the World Cup next month without having to carry the burden of unrealistic expectations

Beckham can Rule the World, declares the Daily Mail, and the man they select to provide this optimistic view, which comes despite the fact that it is five weeks since the England captain has kicked a ball in match conditions, is not the kind to whom you would lightly say: "Tell me, Signor, how long has your thought process had all the intellectual rigour of a jar of tomato purée?"

No, cheekiness, on or off the field, has never been the smart option when dealing with Claudio Gentile, who is currently the coach of the Italian Under-21 team but will always be remembered for his superb contribution to Italy's World Cup triumph in Spain in 1982.

At a time when defensive cynicism knew no bounds Gentile was the hardest of the hard. Great, brave forwards felt a chill when they looked into his eyes. Players like Paolo Rossi and Marco Tardelli grabbed the big headlines. But Gentile had a fierce aura at ground zero. He was also a technically superb defender, an embodiment of Italy's classic fusion of beauty and muscle.

So when Gentile speaks it is reasonable to listen. However, there is a another problem to address and it is not so easy for those of us who have recently been accused of a morbid desire to pick holes in the image of the world's most celebrated footballer.

What you have to say is that it would be good for the health of the nation's critical faculty, and also the burden of absurd expectation Beckham will carry into the first game against Sweden if he should pass fit, if some of the more outlandish assessments of the player's all-round ability were given a little proper light.

Gentile's euphoric paean of behalf of Beckham would certainly seem to qualify for such treatment.

He says: "He is an inspirational captain who certainly can take England all the way. Italy, France and Argentina may be the favourites but I believe England belong in the same category. In Beckham they have a player who is already one of the biggest and best talents in the world. In my view he is on a level with Zidane.

"Technically he is perfect. He is the complete player, one with vision and a beautiful technique. He has the ability to go past players if need be, and of course has this knack of hitting passes from any distance and landing them exactly on the spot he wants. When you put all his attributes together, you get the complete player." Did you spot the nonsense, the mis-statement which calls into question the whole weight of Gentile's breathtaking endorsement?

Technically perfect? No problem here. No morbidity in the world could cloud the fact that Beckham strikes the ball quite beautifully, indeed as sweetly as anyone who ever played the game. Vision? Ditto. He announced that as a callow youth with a breath-taking strike against Wimbledon. He sees it early, and he has the means to exploit the clarity of his view. But Gentile also says that Beckham has the ability to go past players if need be. Here is the fundamental, dismaying inaccuracy, and the latest evidence that hype creates its own force and one, if sufficiently unchallenged, that can grotesquely interfere with a realistic evaluation of, in this case, Beckham's and England's potential to do well in the World Cup finals.

Much of the momentum of Beckham's current level of unprecedented publicity was generated by the superbly flighted free-kick which saved England's direct route to the finals on that critical day against Greece at Old Trafford. It was a moment which thrilled much of the nation to its core, and it came when an abject England performance was separated from terrible failure only by the will, and eventually, the technical prowess and fine nerve of their captain. So, certainly, we should give unto Beckham what is his. But while we do, it is surely in everyone's interest, and not least his own, to guard against the worst affects of over-heated optimism.

By now England, of all football nations, should have insulated itself against the dangers of false promise. Two years ago, having narrowly qualified, Kevin Keegan said that he saw no reason why England should not win Euro 2000. Two years earlier, Glenn Hoddle claimed that he was taking the best prepared England team to a World Cup. This was shortly after the creative force of the team, Paul Gascoigne, had left the training camp in tears and Beckham's head was said to have been in the wrong place. But it seems we do not learn, not even under the worldly counsel of Sven Goran Eriksson.

Whatever else Eriksson fails to do in Japan, he cannot be accused of ducking the realities of international football. He has hunted down hubris wherever he has found it, but in England, he has surely discovered, it breeds beyond control at times such as this.

Now, as he contemplates football's supreme challenge with grave concern about the fitness of key men, and not least the Beckham who is ranked by one of the world's most pragmatic former players, Gentile, beside Zinedine Zidane – a World Cup, European Championship and European Cup winner – he might be forgiven a passing yearning for the sober Scandanavian calculations of his youth. Back in Sweden, his countrymen tend to squint glumly into the midnight sun. Here, of course, we get excited at the approach of every new football dawn. There are worse national traits, no doubt, but it does make it hard when reality comes kicking in. No one should know this better than David Beckham, who after the last World Cup was required to escape to New York, where he was not in danger of being branded a traitor or worse at every street corner.

We may think Gentile was being a little too kind to Beckham, but perhaps not. Maybe he was just adding another notch of unsupportable pressure.

Should we applaud the manager or Wilkinson?

Let no one say that Howard Wilkinson, the Football Association's technical director, is not one of football's most brilliant in-fighters.

Pushed to one side by the appointment of Sven Goran Eriksson – after enjoying the undisputed title of king-maker of England's international football – he took a terrible critical pasting after the 0-0 draw in Finland which finally persuaded his bosses they had to go foreign. But now that performance in Helsinki, which was deemed so arid at the time and featured a fully fit Michael Owen racked with barely controlled frustration on the bench – has been described as a benchmark – the key to all that Eriksson achieved in turning around an apparently hopeless qualifying position.

Who is the author of this arrestingly original assessment? Yes, you guessed. It is the irrepressible Wilko.

He recalls his after-game comment that maybe it was time to go with the kids at the risk of losing all fading hope of qualification for the World Cup finals, and comments: "Peter Taylor went with the kids for the next game against Italy and Sven did the same when he came in. England are now the youngest international side in Europe. But when I made the point back then, there was the outcry, 'Wilko says surrender.' It makes you laugh." Or, alternatively, cry.

On that cold night one distinctly remembers the appearances of Andy Cole, Teddy Sheringham, Martin Keown and Dennis Wise, which was maybe not the most striking of investments in youth.

For the record, though, it should be pointed out that Eriksson did little more than swallow Wilkinson's master plan whole. For one thing, he took Michael Owen aside and started brilliant reclamation work on the battered confidence of the kid who shook the world in France four years ago. Wilko said it makes you laugh. Perhaps a wry smile might be more in order.