It wasn’t even a winning goal. But still, in the euphoria of an equaliser, David Beckham resembled Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man: limbs outstretched, embodying both the divine and the mortal.
It was a career always teetering between the two. From watching Beckham, you could be forgiven for thinking such talent was god-given, as was the effortless beauty of his passing.
Yet for every bolt from the heavens, there was always a simmering feeling that the boy wonder was only human: on the side of the angels, but never truly one of them. He’d grafted to get where he was, hours honed on his trademark ping and his heart worn proudly on that baggy long sleeve.
Beckham could have stood on top of the world in 1998, but fell in Saint-Etienne with a casual flick out at Diego Simeone. In the fallout, England’s titans toppled, too; Adams, Ince and Shearer retired, one by one, before Wembley was knocked down with defeat to Germany. A leadership void became an identity crisis.
Up stepped Beckham once more, met with the suspicion of a weary electorate offered a brave new world. Those four years between World Cups became his renaissance. England’s coiffed captain grew taller with the armband, netting three times in the qualification charge – including a looping free-kick in Greece – before captaining that 5-1 destruction of Germany.
Doubts were duly quelled by October 2001, Beckham’s boyband locks shaved off entirely, with England coming to his Old Trafford stomping ground for the first time post-Wembley. He looked every inch his nation’s mature new messiah. Qualification could coincide with redemption.
If only his team-mates had read the script. That afternoon, Beckham ran an astonishing 16km, burning the turf like a Delorean, moving infield to conduct. With both Paul Scholes and Steven Gerrard looking miles off the pace, England’s skipper was a one-man engine room, winning possession, and spraying with ethereal elegance.
But though it was far from faultless from Beckham, that was his charm: scruff-of-the-neck stuff, with brilliance baked in.
England’s coiffed captain grew taller with the armband
Greece went a goal up; Beckham doubled down. On 68 minutes, he swung a free-kick onto Teddy Sheringham’s head for England to level – but it lasted little more than 90 seconds.
Greek goalkeeper Antonis Nikopolidis was standing tall, too. Beckham’s deft dink over his head in Athens saw him dropped for the next two games – but as the free-kicks racked up, his breaths were deepening.
Eight dead balls in, inspiration struck for England’s captain, as Nikopolidis took half a step in the wrong direction: Beckham played the double bluff to perfection, the ball arrowing into the top left. “You practice something so much that at some point, it’s gonna happen when it needs to happen,” the midfielder later smiled.
Coincidentally, England didn’t know in this moment that a draw would be enough – yet Old Trafford erupted all the same, for Beckham, as much as England. For the goalscorer himself, three years of tension evaporated into the sunny October sky, his status restored in one swing of the peg. No, it wasn’t even at a major tournament – but even celtic hearts two decades later can empathise with such rapture.
And yes, it may be England’s greatest-ever individual performance. Hardly the most perfect, most important or even a hat-trick against Germany – but one with unmatched heart. It’s only after such lows that the highs mean this much: you’d never see the stars without the dark, after all.
10 miles run, Beckham finally collapsed in a sunbeam on the Old Trafford grass. When he stood up, he’d never be doubted again. It was only an equaliser – but it was otherworldly.
