In Italy or Spain, Beckham the celebrity will have to take second place to Beckham the footballer, writes Paddy Agnew in Rome
Your starter for 10 - to which famous footballer do the following front-page banner headlines of the past week refer? "Prime Minister Berlusconi Wants Him for AC Milan"; "He is the King of the World", and "He Has A Winning Image, Everybody Wants Him".
Before you answer "David Beckham", it should be pointed out that the above headlines refer to AS Roma midfielder and Italian international Francesco Totti. Like Beckham, he has been at the centre of transfer speculation in recent days. Like Beckham, too, he has a habit of scoring important goals for his country, most recently setting Italy on the way to a 2-0 European Championship win against Finland on Wednesday night.
Most observers, in these parts at least, would also suggest that Totti is a more complete, more talented player than Beckham. That may be a chauvinistic opinion, but what is certain is that, in the last week, Francesco Totti has generated 10 times more headlines in Italy than Beckham.
You could make much the same observation about Real Madrid icon and Spanish international Raul. Put simply, players such as Totti and Raul are much more high-profile figures in Italy and Spain respectively than Beckham.
Yet, in the week when Beckham's impending move either to Spain or Italy (in that order, for the moment) has attracted huge Irish and British media attention, it is only natural to entertain a sneaky little suspicion. Do Beckham and his entourage (wife, agent, sponsors, etc) realise that England's most famous footballer and fashion icon may suddenly become a rather ordinary-sized fish in a European "sea" dominated by the likes of Totti and Raul, not to mention Frenchman Zinedine Zidane, Brazilian Roberto Carlos, Portugal's Figo and Ukrainian "bullet" Andriy Shevcenko?
In an English context, Beckham (28) is a multi-million-euro commodity, a hero on whose handsome shoulders rides the fate of both the country's national team and its greatest club, Manchester United. In Italy or Spain, he will be just another much-hyped, much-sponsored and talented foreign star. Indeed, if he goes to a club like Real Madrid (the current favourites to land him) or to AC Milan, he will be just one of several huge international stars on the club books.
In dealing with Beckham in an English context, one must inevitably assess two interlinked phenomena: Beckham the footballer and Beckham the commodity. At times, it would seem that Beckham the celebrity outdoes not just Beckham the footballer but perhaps even his own club, Manchester United.
Indeed, many British observers believe that the major reason behind United's decision to let Beckham leave (he still has two years of his contract to see out) is linked to the fact that he has become "bigger" than both his club and its highly successful manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
In a British context, being married to a glamorous, pushy former Spice Girl with ambitions for her husband's career and a penchant for sexy clothing makes for guaranteed tabloid news coverage, regardless of the result of the previous night's match.
For the Italians and the Spanish, who have seen legendary names such as Argentine Maradona, Frenchman Platini, Hungarian Puskas, Dutchman Cruyff, Argentine Di Stefano and Brazilian Ronaldo all come and go, the result and the performance in the game will matter much, much more.
In Spain and Italy, Beckham the superstar would be deprived of his tabloid market for the good reason that there is no tabloid press. (There are, it is true, plenty of Italian and Spanish gossip weeklies, but these have nothing like the impact of six million copies of the Sun).
For Spaniards and Italians, many of whom take it for granted that you have a house in the country and one by the sea as well as your main working residence, the fact that the Beckhams recently opted to buy a little heap in the south of France is of little or no interest. British tabloids, on the other hand, simply cannot get enough detail about daily life at "Beckingham Palace".
When Diego Maradona played with Napoli, winning two Italian league titles for the club (1987, 1990), local media sources turned a benevolent blind eye to his irregular off-the-field habits. Thus it was that a conspiracy of silence existed over the Argentinian's burgeoning drug problem throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. The pay-off for that silence was that, cocaine notwithstanding, Maradona delighted Neopolitans and indeed the rest of Italy with magical, winning football. For Neopolitans, silence about Maradona's after-hours life was a price worth paying for the chance of watching quite simply the greatest little genius ever to step on to a football pitch. Maradona, as we suspected then and know now, most definitely offered no sort of role model for fans and enthusiasts.
By contrast, Beckham, the tough warrior unafraid to express a soft, feminine side, has won the hearts of millions by being a genuinely doting dad with his babies. In Spain and Italy, however, it will be Beckham the footballer, not the doting dad, that matters. The fact, too, that Beckham sometimes seems like a man who, in the words of Guardian columnist Julie Burchill this week, is "massively pussy-whipped by his talentless ambition-hound of a wife", may not necessarily go down well in macho Mediterranean lands.
Spanish and Italian cultural tastes and expectations are simply different.
Corrado Sannucci, sportswriter on the Rome daily, La Repubblica, is not alone in his suspicion that "Beckham-mania" would simply not catch on in Italy, explaining: "Sure Beckham is a fashion icon in England. But if he came to Italy, let's say to Milan, he would be coming to the capital of fashion. Perhaps what passes for elegance and fashion in England would simply look like someone badly dressed in Milan."
If Beckham superstar runs the risk of becoming just another highly-paid star in Spain or Italy, then clearly his success (or lack of it) in this next stage of his career will depend exclusively on his footballing talent. In Italy or England, Beckham will return to the ranks of being just a footballer.
And there could be the rub. How good is Beckham? Are there more facets to his game than brilliant free-kicks and corners? Furthermore, in the Spanish and Italian contexts, where he will be competing with dead-ball specialists such as Del Piero, Totti, Roberto Carlos, Mihajlovic, Figo, Nedved, and so on, even those talents are nothing out of the ordinary.
Sources close to Beckham suggest that, to his credit, the player himself acknowledges that a move to somewhere like Real Madrid represents a challenge, a chance to move on and improve his game. Whilst Beckham knows he has nothing more to learn from either Manchester United or Alex Ferguson, it remains to be seen just how he will fare in a footballing context that presents new problems, especially off the field.
Even if his lack of pace caused him problems in Spain and even if the tight, defensively organised Serie A game in Italy worked against him, Beckham surely has enough pure talent to survive.
Be that as it may, Beckham could face much bigger problems off the pitch. The need to learn either Spanish or Italian, on the one hand, and a club requirement that players be both available and courteous to the media, on the other, are issues that can come as a massive culture-shock to any player arriving from Britain.
East Europeans and Latin American players, newly arrived in Spain or Italy, tend to be quick language-learners. British footballers, suspicious of the tabloid press and slow to learn the lingo, tend to start off with a handicap in both Italy and Spain.
It may be that, in the end, the Beckham transfer will not happen, at least this summer. For a start, he is expensive, with an estimated €35 million price-tag on his head, plus wage requirements of around €6.5 million a year. It could be that none of Real Madrid, Barcelona or AC Milan feel he is worth such an expenditure.
Furthermore, all three clubs may in the end prove wary of taking on a player who comes complete with "Team Beckham", his very own squad of advisers, agents, fashion consultants, physiotherapists et al. It is not insignificant that when Brazilian Ronaldo moved from Inter Milan to Real Madrid last summer, Real refused to take on board Ronaldo's own personal staff, informing him that the club would look after his needs.
Then, too, there is the suspicion that Beckham now feels himself to be a celebrity first and a footballer second. If this is so, then his days as a competitive footballer are numbered. A life that revolves around Vogue parties, photo-ops with Nelson Mandela and the MTV Movie Awards may help on the climb up the greasy pole of fame, but it does nothing by way of preparation for a tough Champions League clash.
Perhaps, in more ways than one, David Beckham has indeed arrived at a crossroads. He may be about to choose not only between England and Europe but also between football and stardom (Barcelona, by the way, have allegedly tried to entice him with the offer of "space" for his extra-football activities, "space" that neither Real Madrid or AC Milan will afford him.)
While Beckham is making up his mind, however, Italian and Spanish fans are likely to be much more concerned about the immediate plans of Totti and Raul.