Beckham Faded in Mid-day Heat

You can't shake destiny. David Beckham has long appeared to be a prisoner of it. He was born to be great, yet he flirts with greatness. Six years ago, George Best said of him: 'He can remain at the top for at least another 10 years if he keeps his mind right. It is frightening to think what he might achieve...'

All that was frightening about the England captain yesterday, dressed up in his bright, shiny new blue shoes, was his ability to disappear in front of our eyes.

He said last week. 'Expectations in England are very, very high and you have to live to up to them.' Those hopes remain hanging. He had the stage here, but, rather than claiming it for his own, he fulfilled another of his fears: that England's first-night nerves would kick in again. 'You don't realise how hot it was out there,' he said, by way of explanation. 'But we got what we wanted. That was a good start and we have the three points.'

They won a tournament opener for the first time since since they beat Tunisia in Marseille during France 98, but in dreadful fashion, let down by Beckham and a host of imposters.

He was so callow then. He's 30 now and should be living up to the predictions of Best and others. It wasn't entirely his one-man no-show, though. When England found out first-hand how poor Paraguay were they looked for someone to tear them apart and found nobody.

Eleven nobodies, to be precise. It was as if they were all wearing masks of who they were supposed to be. They will not be gifted an easier three points, almost fraudulently acquired through an own goal and clung to like a stolen handbag, but they need to do more than put an awful afternoon's mugging behind them. They need to ask some hard questions.

Why, under so little pressure, did such good players trudge about as if someone had poured glue into their shoes?

And the shoes that shone most brightly belonged, as ever, to Beckham. And, with less than three minutes gone, the right one lit up the stadium. Perfectly balanced, he thrashed through the dead ball in that familiar balletic arc. Applying enormous side-spun revs, he scythed it just a few feet in front of the goalkeeper Justo Villar. It was Carlos Gamarra's misfortune to jump highest, at least 2ft above Michael Owen, and his head served as no more than a point of redirection for Beckham's arrow. It was in the net before Peter Crouch left the turf.

Moments later Beckham robbed his marker Cristian Riveros, teased him, turned and slowly prised open a pocket of Paraguayan resistance on the right. It was a start of immense promise. Then he and nearly everyone else bar Joe Cole, Crouch and, in the second half, Frank Lampard let England down. The game was so lacking in structure it screamed out for creativity to fill the void.

At least Beckham was fit. Elsewhere it was as if a passing ambulance had dumped a few of its clients on the pitch - John Terry, Steven Gerrard and Owen.

When Beckham teed the ball off to the advancing Gerrard early in the first half, it was plain the Liverpool midfielder had not shaken off the effects of a back spasm. His sideways volley was stiff. The ball disappeared into the seats. It would do so twice more. A yellow card for lunging a fraction late at the feet of Roque Santa Cruz can hardly have helped his mood.

While everyone in the vicinity of Gerrard looked to be moving as if sliding on mercury, Beckham was briefly at his elusive best. When Nelson Valdez snapped late and nastily at his heels and was booked, it brought to mind Joe Royle's wonderful description of Osvaldo Ardiles one afternoon at Oldham: 'It was like tackling dust.'

But, like dust, Beckham's performance floated away on the wind. For Gerrard it got worse. There seemed a degree of premeditation in Carlos Paredes's charge into his suspect back. He got up, but it was not what any doctor would have ordered and he was rarely in the game again.

There was another searing cross from Beckham, but that was about it. In the second half he and everyone else but Lampard and Crouch lost all urgency.

The captain maybe aims too high. He was always easily distracted. This was his ninetieth game for his country, the mark at which Bryan Robson finished. Beckham wants to go on, past Billy Wright (105), Bobby Charlton (106), Bobby Moore (108) and, eventually, Peter Shilton (125).

Best was right about Beckham in January 2000. If he were alive today, he might revise his judgment. And Best knew a bit about destiny.