Showboating in China

The Beijing leg of the trip has been a diplomatic mess, lurching through confrontations between security officials, both Spanish and Chinese, and supporters. Ahead of last night’s match, Madrid were obliged to apologise for an incident late on Friday involving a member of the club’s security staff and a female executive of one of the firms sponsoring the tour. The woman, from Jian Li Bao, a sports drinks manufacturer, was pushed to the ground as she and her companions moved towards the players on a private visit to the Forbidden City.

The excursion had originally been cancelled because Real were not satisfied that their safety could be guaranteed at the historic site following crowd control problems when they touched down in the Chinese capital. At Beijing airport, Spanish cameramen clashed with police over access to their compatriots.

But crowds are good for business, and for the people who run Real Madrid, the sight of hundreds camping outside the team hotel is a welcome one: it promises replica shirt sales, and as China tiptoes between communism and consumerism, any number of other retail possibilities as well. Getting mobbed, declared Jorge Valdano, the club’s sports director, is part of the package. “It happens in Spain, too,” he said. “It’s the price that you pay as a Real Madrid footballer.”

It has long been the price of being David Beckham. Even on the pitch last night, he needed the referee’s whistle to blow to allow him to escape from being the focus of attention. Immediately before kick-off, the players were given red ribbons by uniformed nurses in appreciation of money which the visiting club had donated to a local hospital.

The idea was that one or two nurses would present ribbons to each player. The reality was that nine Florence Nightingales, in aprons and nurses’ hats, sprinted across the pitch to Beckham in a scene straight out of Benny Hill.

The football? It was only a friendly, although it had its red-blooded moments. Beckham’s first touch came courtesy of Zinedine Zidane, his second fed Raúl and set off an intricate set of passes that are the trademark of Madrid’s best work and a lesson that positions in this midfield are the starting point for elaborate debate rather than permanent addresses.

Beckham began on the right of midfield, his designation until coach Carlos Queiroz decides otherwise, and Luis Figo, the right-wing for the last three seasons, began at outside left, where he thrived. Figo finished as man of the match and scored the first goal of the game.

Beckham says he understands his role as being “slightly different” from the one he was familiar with at Manchester United, that he will find himself more often moving from the right flank into the centre of midfield. An understanding with Michel Salgado, Madrid’s attacking right-back, is developing and over a dead ball, Beckham will seldom be looking over his shoulder. Beckham’s corners yesterday met his usual high standards. The plan is that he takes them from the right, while Figo takes those on the left.

Beckham’s was a satisfying first outing, and more — “thanks to my teammates,” he said afterwards — but it was not faultless. His first two long-range passes — and there will be many of such with Ronaldo to supply — were overhit, and he was fortunate that an ugly tackle aimed at Dragons midfielder Shen Si missed its target. His first free kick drew a spectacular, if straightforward, save from a goalkeeper called Sun Gang; his second whistled just past a post. Madrid’s free kick hierarchy seems to be this: within 25 yards of goal, Beckham will be first choice. Roberto Carlos, he of the cannonball left foot, will have a go from further out, and Figo will wait in the queue.

Figo had given Real the lead shortly before half-time; they completed the rout only when it was polite to do so and Beckham, along with the other “galacticos” — Raúl, Ronaldo, Zidane, Figo and Roberto Carlos — had given way to their understudies, with substitutes Fernando Morientes and Javier Portillo completing the scoring.

By then, the Madrid number 23 could look back on moments that really made him look like he belonged, and one in particular — a 50-yard crossfield pass, right to left, that picked out the instep of Santiago Solari.

It was a breathtaking ball, and with it came an injection of adrenaline. “David took more risks in the second half,” noted Queiroz, “but that’s natural.” Queiroz also had in his mind Beckham’s bold corner, driven at a sharp angle to the edge of the penalty box, where Roberto Carlos met it with a thumping volley. There had also been a delicate chip into the path of Morientes, who later scored twice.

After the final whistle, his colleagues were as generous to Beckham as he had been for 75 minutes to them. Zidane ruffled his ponytails affectionately and Carlos told him “well done”.

“I think he was tired by the end, because it was hot and humid out there,” said the Brazilian. “But he seems happy. He is comfortable in his new team.”

Queiroz was pleased with the debutante, and emphasised Beckham’s unselfishness. “His priority is always to play for the team,” said the coach.

Next stop Tokyo, where again fans will be camped outside the team hotel, although the players will no longer be protected by the type of police guard that in China could never have been mistaken for anything other than the employees of an authoritarian state. Beijing was suffocating, although one benefit for Beckham is that the team spent a good deal of time in each other’s company. Beckham is making friends and says he has enjoyed his first 10 days with his new colleagues. As ever, he has quietly charmed the public, but would be forgiven for thinking that Real have little idea yet of how to manage his staggering popularity.

The hype will die down, slowly. Roberto Carlos has a nice way of describing the effect which Beckham is having on the day-to-day workings of the squad. The full-back has watched the way hype swirls around the place every year: he saw Figo arrive in 2000 and attention smother him; he saw Zidane come and often cower under the scrutiny attached to being the world’s most expensive player; he watched Ronaldo, who had just won the World Cup in Japan, join, and witnessed the club’s excitement about his marketing potential, supposing that he was bigger in Asia than Buddha.So hype is Real’s habit, its addiction. Only with Beckham, there’s been more of that than even with Ronaldo. “At the moment, it’s like having a new-born baby,” said Roberto Carlos. “You want to hold it all the time, but after a while, you give it less attention.”

The Brazilian says he admires the way Beckham “isolates himself from everything that’s going on around him”. Nothing was quite so isolating of Beckham the icon as the “press conference” held by Beckham, Ronaldo and Raúl in the build-up to yesterday’s match. Reporters were forbidden from asking questions, and neither Ronaldo nor Beckham spoke. They just sat at a podium for half an hour, mute. They might as well have been waxworks.

It outraged one columnist for Titan Sports, a popular Chinese newspaper, to whom the last word: “I’d have liked to be able to tell you, David Beckham, that you seem a gentleman, and you smile like a baby.”