David Beckham has admitted that England can’t blame the heat for their below-par performance against Paraguay on Saturday.
Beckham promised a better all-around performance for the game against Trinidad & Tobago in Nuremberg, where temperatures are expected to be cooler than in the game against Paraguay.
“We’ve already spoke about the heat in the game, but I’m not going to speak about it anymore because we can’t blame our performance on the heat because we’ve played in it before,” Beckham said.
“We’re better players than that and we know we can put in a better performance than that.”
England wilted in the second-half, and their performance attracted criticism back in Britain.
“Of course we’re aware of it,” Beckham said. “We’re aware of everything that gets said about the team and each player, but there’s a way of dealing with that. We respond with working hard and getting on with our training. That’s the only way we can respond. If you listen to every bit of criticism that’s said about you as a person or a player or as a team, it’s going to affect you and we can’t allow that to happen.”
Beckham is good friends with T&T striker Dwight Yorke; the two played together for four years at Manchester United, winning three league titles and the 1999 European Cup.
“Yorkie’s a great lad, he always likes a laugh and a joke,” Beckham said. “When he’s on a football pitch, he’s a serious person and he’s a player that we have to be aware of.”
“The result they got against Sweden might have surprised a few people but it didn’t really surprise me, because I know they’re a tough team and physically they are very good. There’ll be a lot of respect on that pitch – from us to them and them to us. You’re going to want to win a football match and you’re going to have to upset a few people.”
