Video: Ambassador Beckham on Duty
As reported in the previous post, David was recently in Sierra Leone as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He toured the country for four days, beginning in the capital of Freetown and traveling to the northern province to visit the area where child mortality is highest. Along the way he played a game soccer with local children and gave them autographed soccer balls, toured health clinics, and even administered medicine to a patient. This touching video shows excerpts from his visit.

Franco found another video directly from UNICEF, parts of which were also broadcast on Sky Sports News.


McClaren Smarting Where the Door Hit Him
Steve McClaren has ponied up another interview with ESPN Press Pass regarding his infamous reign as England's manager, including his decision to exclude Beckham from the squad. Here's a snip:

Q. You grabbed the headlines straight away. One of your first decisions was to leave David Beckham out. What was the thought process behind that?
A. Just to go forward. Just believing that we had the players behind, young players coming through, who could play on the right hand side and looking at Euro 2008 coming up.

I could see the likes of Steven Gerrard (who was playing on the right for Liverpool) and Owen Hargreaves, who'd come through in the World Cup. Also with Frank Lampard and Joe Cole, I could see a very strong midfield and, a great player like David Beckham, I didn't see being able to sit on the bench. I didn't really want that.

There are other Beckham-related questions, see the full interview here.


MLS Will Seal Beckham's Fate?
Speaking of McClaren, here's a piece that dovetails on the McClaren & 100th cap story reported here on Jan. 18th. He also told ESPN that while he was confident Becks will win his 100th cap, his future as an international player will be on rocky ground because he's now playing in the MLS. McClaren said:

He's gone from the top, top team in Europe to basically America and MLS where it's really at the beginnings and nurturing and flourishing and coming through, but not of the standard of what he's used to. And definitely not of the standard of what international football requires.

It's not a unique opinion; many skeptical pundits have been saying that for months. But you can read McClaren's version of the theory in the interview here.


Press Pass Catches up with Ruud Gullit
Last week Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit spoke to ESPN's Press Pass in a Q&A as well, much of it dealing with having Beckham on the Galaxy side. Here's a snippet:

Q. How do you build a team on the basis that they struggled last season and Beckham was not included in the side generally because of injury - do you build the team around Beckham?
A. No, it is not around Beckham because we have also Landon Donovan and Landon is also a good player. We try to create a team that plays its best as a team and not as individuals. David is part of that and Landon is also part of that and we hope to do something so they can play their best games and so others will learn from them.

Read the interview here.


Newcastle Rumors Addressed
Alexi Lalas spoke to Sky Sports News yesterday and said there is "absolutely no truth" to the rumors that David may sign with Newcastle United. He stated that Newcastle hasn't approached him, and that even if they had David will never be loaned out or for sale. Becks is, as Alexi put it, "unavailable". Another report presenting Newcastle's side of the story can be found on Goal.com


Father and Son in the Groove
A video with clips of a Spice Girls concert at O2 in December is now floating around YouTube. At about 1m 20s you catch a fairly good glimpse of David and Cruz in the crowd. At 4m 10s you see him and Cruz rockin' out! (Though Cruz doesn't seem to appreciate the volume quite as much as the fans...)

Posted by Dina Ely, soccer editorial/commentary writer. Blog: Eleven Men

Labels: david beckham, david beckham in sierra leone, david beckham with unicef, l.a. galaxy, newcastle united, ruud gullit, spice girls, steve mcclaren