/ 14 September 2004

Beckham set to come out fighting

Real Madrid will try to revive memories of their last glorious moment on the Champions League stage when they face German side Bayer Leverkusen away in their first match of this season’s tournament on Wednesday.

Two years ago a stunning volley from Zinedine Zidane was the stand-out moment as Real beat Bayer 2-1 in the final in Glasgow, but on Wednesday it will be another of their galacticos, David Beckham, who will be looking to build on his fine free kick in the 1-0 victory over Numancia on Saturday.

The 29-year-old was still at Manchester United when Real last won the Champions League and last season’s campaign is one he would rather forget for the ”meringues” when his marital problems intruded on his form.

Poor performances for England at Euro 2004 and subsequent World Cup qualifiers have presented him with a huge challenge to show he is still worthy of his place in England’s side, but he has come out fighting.

”Of course my performances have not been as good but I don’t think they stretch back as far as people are saying,” he said.

”When you get criticised some people go the other way, but some people come out fighting and my way is to come out doing just that.

”And when people come out and criticise my family or my football, then I just go out there and play my football.”

Many Real fans will be hoping that Jose Antonio Camacho opts for a strike force of Spaniard Fernando Morientes — top scorer in the competition when on loan at Monaco last season — and Brazilian Ronaldo, as both Raul and Englishman Michael Owen are desperately out of form.

Real meet a side that slipped to their first defeat in 14 matches at the weekend, a 2-0 reverse against newly promoted Mainz, and to which their coach, Klaus Augenthaler, held his hands up to.

”You can not win a football match without effort,” raged Augenthaler, who was a member of the 1990 World Cup-winning West German side. ”I have failed to take the player’s minds off the match against Madrid.”

Fabio Capello will be looking for a measure of revenge when he takes Juventus to Ajax on Wednesday as it was the Dutch side that beat his then AC Milan team in the 1995 Champions League final.

One major doubt for Capello is Brazilian star Emerson, who suffered a leg-muscle injury during the 3-0 victory over Brescia on Sunday, but on the positive side there was a goal-scoring display by Czech maestro Pavel Nedved and summer signing from Ajax Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Nedved, though, claimed that he was still not fully fit after suffering an injury in the Euro 2004 semifinal defeat by Greece.

”I am only playing at half my capacity,” he said. ”But that is a warning to the rest of our rivals as I will very soon be back to my best and I am looking this season to win the Champions League at any cost.”

Morientes’s former club, Monaco, travel to Liverpool where they will cross swords with former defender John Arne Riise and on the back of a convincing 3-1 victory at the weekend that saw their latest star, on-loan Argentine striker Javier Saviola, open his scoring account.

However, Monaco coach Didier Deschamps will have to do without the Olympic gold-medal-winning striker’s services as he is serving a suspension after being sent off in Barcelona’s Uefa Cup defeat by Celtic last season.

”I will not use just one striker,” said Deschamps, who is likely to pair Mohamed Kallon and Emmanuel Adebayor up front.

Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez was delighted with the performance of the team in the 3-0 defeat of West Brom at the weekend and claimed he was close to coming up with his most effective line-up.

”It is slowly coming together and I am confident that I will soon be putting out the team that is the best one available,” said the Spaniard, who will be hoping that Real Madrid do not step in and steal playmaker Steven Gerrard.

If Benitez is confident he is close to finding the right formula, his Manchester United counterpart, Sir Alex Ferguson — impatient to include Rio Ferdinand and wunderkind striker Wayne Rooney — must be scratching his head in bewilderment.

They travel to Lyon on the back of more bad news as their experienced England defender Gary Neville is out for four weeks with a hairline fracture of his kneecap, picked up last week in the World Cup qualifier with Poland.

Their defensive lapses in the 2-2 draw with Bolton at the weekend have given the French side just the encouragement they need and with their summer signing, young Brazilian international Nilmar, endorsing his nickname as the ”Phenomenon” after scoring a double in the 2-1 win over Rennes, they enter the match in a confident mood.

”They have defensive problems that we must exploit,” said Remi Garde, one of the Lyon backroom staff, who watched the United-Bolton clash. ”We just have to invest as much effort into the match as Bolton did.”

Politics may well rear its head when Maccabi Tel Aviv host Bayern Munich because the German side travel with Iran star Vahid Hashemian.

The striker looks set to defy a ban on Iranian sportsmen competing against their Israeli counterparts, something that earned him the praise of Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer.

”Politics should stay out of sport,” explained Beckenbauer. ”He [Hashemian] is a Bayern player and I see no reason why he should not play.” — Sapa-AFP