Why the cap no longer fits

In advance of the naming on Thursday of the 30-man squad Capello trimmed to 23 last night, a chorus of voices notable for vehemence rather than rationality had persistently instructed the manager that England owed it to Beckham to hand over a 100th cap. So it was a victory for sane priorities that the Italian decided he owed it to himself to let straightforward football criteria govern his selection. Had he allowed the lobbying pressure to interfere with the principles that have shaped his impressive achievements in the club game, he would have been making a flawed start in Soho Square. Oozing into the new job with a populist gesture (however apparently trivial its practical effects) could never be a sound option for somebody whose tough-mindedness was one of the principal justifications for hiring him.

Possibly dropping Beckham struck Capello as such a common-sense course of action, was so much a reflexive application of his working methods, that he scarcely dwelt on the wider significance it might have. That, however, is difficult to imagine. He appears too calculating to have failed to realise that rejection would be widely perceived as a callous tarnishing of Goldenballs. And Capello's willingness to offer the player a personalised explanation of his omission, but one reportedly emphasising deficiencies in fitness and match sharpness that must be rectified before a recall can be envisaged, indicates the decision to jettison the former captain was taken by a manager already reading the consequences and quite at ease with what he foresaw.

Assuming that is true, there may be grounds for suspecting he meant those consequences to reach beyond the delivery of a statement of intent about the institutionalised pampering of egos that has bedevilled the management of the national squad in recent years. Wasn't he, perhaps, also pleased to be providing an early sign of how little the media's talent for clamour is likely to impinge on his thinking? The first flaunting of his healthy indifference certainly had a chastening impact. When Thursday's announcement was made, there were conspicuously few sounds of protest, which was remarkable considering the fervour the Beckham bandwagon had been generating in the preceding days. One respected ex-professional, commenting in a broadsheet, said it would be "a disgrace" if Capello didn't grant completion of the century.

Any logic there is in such an attitude eludes me. Are we supposed to accept that reaching 99 caps guarantees the ceremonial presentation of the 100th? Does the ability to perform to a standard warranting inclusion in the national team become an irrelevance when the three-figure total looms?

Most of us see sport as a meritocracy, not something to be tainted with the arbitrariness of an honours system. Shouldn't Beckham the footballer feel he has as much credit with 99 caps as he would have with 100 if the extra one arrived in the form of a gift?

Yes, the campaigners for his cause may say, but 100 is a magical number and, given his overall service to England, he deserves to be associated with it. Well, the number does have a resonance but what it means can vary a great deal. Sir Stanley Matthews, though his England career stretched from 1935 until 1957, gained only 54 caps; Sir Tom Finney, who lost fewer years of his prime to the second world war than Matthews did, had a total of 76; and Jimmy Greaves finished with 57. Beckham will recognise that in the hierarchy of English football's exceptional talents he ranks some way below those men, and many others, and no adjustment of digits in the caps column can alter that.

Capello's assurance that a revival of vigour and effectiveness will earn Beckham renewed consideration is probably a challenge the manager doesn't expect to be met. The 32-year-old has made a habit in the past of answering setbacks with resolute commitment but returning to mainstream prominence from the competitive wastelands of America's Major League Soccer may be too much of a task even for his freakish resilience. As football's supreme celebrity, he has had a career so akin to a soap opera that it has always lent itself naturally to cliches. When he marked the securing of a multi-million-pound contract in the US with vows that he would remain able to be a stalwart for England he was telling us he could have his cake and eat it. The banal but sad truth is that he has made his luxurious bed and will have to lie in it.

Still crying for Busby's Babes

Across 50 years the Munich plane crash retains its raw capacity to send a unique shudder through the spirit. Football in this country and elsewhere has known many disasters numerically more devastating than the failed take-off at a snowy German airfield on February 6, 1958 and each of them has spread immense ripples of anguish. But, without going anywhere near the gross offensiveness of seeking to quantify grief, it is reasonable to say that no calamity in the history of British sport has left more people who had never met the victims with a deeply personal sense of loss.

It focused, of course, on the eight of Manchester United's Busby Babes who died as a result of the crash. That was neither unnatural nor disrespectful towards the other 15 men who had perished, simply proof that millions felt their own lives had been severely impoverished by the deaths of those young footballers.

The Babes, the outrageously precocious and vibrant team assembled by the inspired managership of Matt Busby, were much more than the pride of Old Trafford, more even than the flower of a football generation. In winning two successive league championships and threatening to dominate the European Cup (the horror of Munich struck when they were on the way home after qualifying for the semi-finals with form that suggested the trophy would be lifted that season) they had stirred a nation still emerging from postwar austerity. Those were days when the relationship between fans and their heroes (heroes they were liable to encounter in the street or on a bus) was closer than the supporters of today could ever imagine. And far beyond Manchester the Babes provided a vehicle for dreams.

All of that was brought poignantly back to me last week when I acted as narrator for a half-hour documentary based on archive footage (Nation on Film: Munich Remembered) that goes out on BBC4 tomorrow night and subsequently on BBC2. Half-a-century hasn't lessened the heartbreaking effect of seeing so much glorious promise snuffed out.

Show time for Brady

When all the showbiz trappings of Super Bowl XLII give way to orchestrated mayhem, the New England Patriots will be bidding for a fourth triumph in seven years. Success against the New York Giants tonight will leave them convinced they are closing on the win records established in American football's ultimate game by the Pittsburgh Steelers, the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys, who have each captured the supreme title five times.

Since New England have beaten everybody they have played this season, backers of the Giants are fully entitled to the start of around a dozen points generally allocated by bookmakers for betting purposes (with the points spread applied, the punter can bet either team at 11-10 on).

The Patriots' head coach, Bill Belichick, has a reputation for favouring relentlessly scientific, some would say robotic play, but expect his quarterback, the brilliant Tom Brady, to carry the banner for flair.