Beckham's fitness in doubt

Watching David Beckham in Saitama on Sunday night was like sitting through the last scene of El Cid, when the crusader army lash the dead Charlton Heston to his saddle and send him out at the head of his troops, knowing that merely the sight of him will strike fear into the enemy's hearts. But, apart from his typically accurate corner kick, Beckham terrified nobody on Sunday.

He is not, however, dead. The question now is whether the real David Beckham, rather than a pale doppelganger, will turn up to face Argentina in Sapporo on Friday evening.

This match ought to represent the defining moment of his career, the chance for revenge and resolution. Four years ago he was still a starlet when he flicked an angry heel at Diego Simeone while lying on the turf in St Etienne. That incident defined his life for the next 18 months, during which he was forced to endure mindless abuse from fans of Premier League clubs up and down England.

He managed it, as he said the other day, with the support of his family. His own inner resources were revealed when Sven-Goran Eriksson endorsed Peter Taylor's imaginative decision to give him the captaincy of the national team. In the qualifying matches against Germany in Munich and Greece at Wembley he displayed his selflessness, his hunger for the team's success, his appetite for work and, in the case of that final free-kick, his refusal to accept defeat.

The Beckham we saw in Saitama was a very different creature. Substituted after an hour, he admitted to feeling tired and to experiencing an ache in his left foot. Neither symptom should be surprising, given that he had not played a competitive match in more than seven weeks and that the metatarsal bone in his left foot is barely healed.

"It might have been dangerous for him to play for more than an hour," Eriksson said yesterday. "He did well for 35 or 40 minutes, but then he was tired. We hope he can play more than one hour on Friday."

However, the first test of this match will be on the level of physical confrontation, and England cannot afford to be led in to it by a man who, however noble his motives, is not in full command of his powers.

Meanwhile, figures released yesterday show that 14 million viewers, 84 per cent of people watching television in the Sunday morning slot, watched it on ITV - the station's biggest ever share of the audience.

Meanwhile, FIFA has authorised the sale of tickets for first phase World Cup matches via telephone. Eighty per cent of the remaining unsold tickets can be sold over a ticket hotline.

The news, announced after an emergency meeting between FIFA and the World Cup organisers, JAWOC, means that fans in search of tickets can contact JAWOC by telephone and order their tickets.

Fans can then collect their match tickets from Venue Ticket Processing Centres in the respective venues. FIFA said it has also improved its Internet site for tickets, which had been inaccessible to many fans due to overdemand.

The decision was announced in a bid to bring an end to the ticket chaos which has loomed over the finals, leading to many empty seats in stadiums, and embarrassment for both host countries.