David Beckham has declared himself 100 per cent to face Sweden in England’s opening Wiorld Cup match on Sunday.
“I’ve said to the manager I’m ready,’ said the England captain. ‘The lastcouple of days training have been excellent. The players look sharp, there is no tiredness.
“Being in a World Cup, you’ve got to be sure that you can last all the games. It would be unfair to the rest of the squad for me to go out there and only last 60 minutes. You’ve got to go into every tackle thinking it’s going to be okay and I’ve been through a few already (in training) and it feels good.
“I was not that confident (of making the World Cup) after I broke the bone. When I got injured, I knew it was broken and I thought I was out. Once the surgeon looked at it, he put my mind at rest. You just don’t know what’s going to happen, but I always had it mind to get fit for the Sweden game whatever.”
And the Manchester United midfielder gave coach Sven-Goran Eriksson a boost by admitting he could last the 90 minutes on Sunday.
But Beckham called on the media to focus on the team now and forget about their recent preoccupation with the state of Beckham’s healing metatarsal.
“There’s been so much hype about the foot, it’s been unfair to the players in the squad,’ he said. ‘They don’t deserve to be not mentioned because it’s a team game. They just laugh about the attention. When you drive to training, there’s 20 Japanese people chasing the coach and shouting, ‘Beckham’ or ‘Owen’, it’s pretty amazing.
“There’s been a lot of hype. I’ve had a lot of well-wishers – from friends up to the Queen. And it ‘s been hard at times, but I wanted to be fit so badly and finally this last week it’s all come together.
“But we’re not out here for a good laugh. This is serious stuff, it’s the Group of Death and we’re in it. We’ve got to believe we can win, if we worry about the other teams, there a big problems.”
