David Beckham: My Side. David Beckham

ready to train with them ahead of a World Cup qualifier.

      At United, Alex Ferguson was great. He was genuinely pleased for me, and told me just to go down and enjoy myself:

      ‘If you get the chance, play well. Just play like you have been doing for us at United.’

      I took him at his word. I met up with the rest of the squad at Bisham Abbey and my first session with Glenn and with England was the best I’d ever trained in my life. I was beating players, getting my crosses in, every single pass reached its man. I even stuck a couple of shots away past David Seaman into the top corner. It was the kind of training session you’d have in a dream; it was a little bit weird just how perfect it was.

      I don’t know how much it had to do with impressing him in training but for his first game in charge as England manager, Glenn Hoddle put me in the starting line-up for my first cap. Of course, it helped that there were players around me who I knew well, like Gary Neville, Gary Pallister and Paul Ince. And we made a great start: Gary Nev and I were both involved in the build-up to the first goal, which was scored by Nicky Barmby. A few minutes later, Gazza had got a second and we weren’t going to lose it from there. In the second half, Alan Shearer got a third. As debuts go, it wasn’t spectacular but I felt as if I belonged straight away. I’d helped set up that third goal for the skipper as well. Perhaps because I hadn’t had years of looking forward to international football, nerves weren’t a problem and I’d just got on with playing my game, like the gaffer had told me to. On 1 September 1996, on a Sunday afternoon in a city called Kishinev, on a bumpy pitch in front of about 10,000 people, I became an international footballer.

      Glenn Hoddle must have been pretty pleased, too. I played in every game of the qualifying campaign for France 98 that, thirteen months later, found us needing a draw in Rome against Italy to go through as group winners. After we’d lost 1–0 to Italy at Wembley, everybody had assumed we would have to win a two-legged play-off to qualify. And before the return game most people still thought that was what would happen. Italy had won their last fifteen fixtures at the Stadio Olimpico and we had our captain, Alan Shearer, out injured, with Ian Wright coming in for him on the night. Even the England fans who made the trip, believing we could do it, had a surprise coming: nobody expected us to play as well as we did. It turned into a fantastic night for England.

      There were over 80,000 inside the stadium and there was quite a lot of trouble in the crowd before the game but, by the time we came out, the atmosphere was just amazing. We had a team full of young players but we gave a really professional performance. I thought we beat the Italians at their own game: we were disciplined, everybody knew what they were supposed to be doing and we passed and kept the ball brilliantly all game. Everybody played well but, early on especially, Paul Gascoigne set the tone for the whole team. Every time he got the ball – and he went looking for it all over the pitch – he kept possession and refused to be hurried. He was doing step-overs, nicking the ball through an opponent’s legs for a pass, as if he was challenging them: We’re as good as you are with the football, you know. It was just what the rest of us needed.

      We kept our heads, even though the Italians were flying into their tackles, wanting the win just as much as we did. Then they had Angelo Di Livio sent off late in the second half. In the stands and watching at home on television, people must have thought we’d done it. In fact, it was only in the time left between then and the end of the match that I started getting nervous. Ian Wright was clean through, went round the goalkeeper, but then hit the post with his shot. Is it going to be one of those nights? We’re that close. Are they going to run up the other end now and score?

      The Italians broke upfield and Christian Vieri had a free header in the last minute and put it over the bar. Seconds later, the whistle went. Everybody charged off the bench and we were celebrating together out on the pitch. Glenn and his number two, John Gorman, were jumping up and down: they’d done a fantastic job preparing us for that game. Paul Ince looked like the hero of the hour, with his head all bandaged up after he’d caught an elbow during the game. Wrighty was dancing around, hugging everybody he could lay his hands on. The supporters up in the stand behind the dugouts were dancing, too, singing the tune from The Great Escape. I looked around me, trying to take all this in. I’d been an England player for just over a year and here we were, going mad, on our way to France for the World Cup the following summer. I was so proud to be part of it all.

      It must have been an amazing night for Paul Gascoigne. He was back at Lazio’s home ground with England and he was the one celebrating. People back home had been wondering if he was past his best and here he’d turned in the kind of performance you’d never forget. The way Gazza played that night – his ability, his nerve and the passion – I still wonder if that wasn’t what we were missing at France 98. I know Glenn Hoddle had his reasons for not including Paul in the squad, but I think we’d have been better with Gazza there. Even if it was just him coming off the bench for twenty minutes, Paul could bring something to the team nobody else could. He could change a game on his own. And I know we’d all have liked him to be around as part of the squad.

      What made it worse was the way Paul and the others found out they weren’t going to be in the final 22 for the tournament. It was a bit like a meat market: ‘You’re in. You’re out.’ It was the wrong way to go about doing it. We were in La Manga in southern Spain, 27 of us in all, to prepare for the World Cup together before the manager made his decision about the final squad. Everybody was nervous, thinking about who wouldn’t be going to France. It could be someone from my club, a mate. It could be me. One afternoon, after training, we were given timed appointments at the hotel: five-minute slots to go in and see Glenn, to find out what was going to happen to us. Almost from the start, the schedule wasn’t working. I remember, at one point, sitting on the floor in a corridor with five other lads while we waited our turn. It was a ridiculous way to treat the players.

      When eventually it came to my turn, the meeting didn’t last long. Looking back, it makes it seem even more unlikely that things turned out for me the way they did once the World Cup began. I walked into the room and Glenn’s first words were:

      ‘Well, David, it goes without saying that you’re in the squad.’

      And that was it. At least I didn’t hold up the next appointment. I was in the 22; but what about everyone else? Rumours had been flying around all day, not surprising when everybody was just waiting to find out what would happen to them. There was a leak somewhere in the camp, too: stories kept on turning up in the papers that could only have come from inside the England set-up. People were saying there was going to be one big story coming out of all this, that one high-profile name would be left out of the squad. The suggestion seemed to be that it would be Gazza. But nobody knew for sure, neither the press nor the players.