LONDON, England - The World's most famous soccer player is back to see action for England on Friday. David Beckham was named by the beleaguered manager Steve McClaren to help England against the powerhouse Brazil in a friendly at the Wembley stadium.

Then on next Wednesday Beckham will be seeing action again for the Three Lions against Estonia in a very important Euro 2008 qualifying match also at Wembley. Although Estonia is a hopeless team with five losses in the qualifying, McClaren can not afford to lose as his job is at stake.

A victory is needed to assure McClaren extends his unimpressive spell as England's manager after Sven-Göran Eriksson was sacked last year. Fans have been clamouring for Beckham's return for quite a long time now. Becks outstanding performance with Real Madrid recently in the Primera Liga has convinced McClaren that he is ready to return once again for country duty.

In 2004 England leaned on the heroics of Becks to qualify for the European Cup. The 32 year-old midfielder this time is expected once again bring back England out from the mid-table and up to the standings to assure their qualification.

England need Beckham very badly. His current form with Real is outstanding that he might earn his first Primera Lega title for Madrid soon. His crosses, free kicks and energy on the pitch were all missed. We are just hopeful that the expectations can be met or else he will be an famous and expensive escape goat if England fail.

I am hoping to see the England vs Brazil match this Friday. I won't promise but If I can get a ticket then I can report my adventure. If not then there are always other matches to see.

SOCCER VS BASKETBALL DEBATE

My previous column has stirred up some reactions. It was about the great soccer vs basketball issues in the Philippines or shall I say soccer vs all the other sports debate.

I commented on the current state of Philippine sports which stress on patronizing only one sport which is basketball. I also blasted the corporate sponsors specially San Miguel Corporation on its mega million peso, sky is the limit support to the current RP men's basketball which is made up of all PBA stars.

The national team unfortunate was clobbered in the just concluded Asian Champions Cup in Iran and are now preparing for the Asian Olympic qualifying tournament which is set late this year.

My former classmate and friend from Singapore Eric Gomez, agrees with my comment and said that both soccer and basketball need the support it can get from the private sector. He also hopes that the private sector and the Philippine government should give support to soccer soon in the future.

My long time friend and former SunStar Daily colleague Rommel Manlosa blames politics as the main hindrance to sports development in our country. `Let them dream of making it to the Olympics, they will never get that far as long as politics clog into the system', he said.

Rommel also recommended baseball as one of our best chance of making it to the Olympics. He said that we Filipinos are top in baseball in Asia and it is the only sport where Filipinos are `natural'.

My former player at University of San Carlos, Jim Karl Akiatan also agrees that height is might in basketball and stressed that there are lots of Asian players who are now currently making it good in several soccer leagues in Europe.



My day is always complete every time I read comments from friends and readers all over the world. That is why I always take time to answer them and give thanks to them, although I just apologize for not answering or reacting to all of them. I just want to use this opportunity to thank all of you.

YES TO BASEBALL BUT....

I admit that baseball is one sport that we can excel and if lots of support and money are poured into the sport then we can go places. But the only problem that the baseball has right now is that there are a lot of people in the International Olympic Committee that do not like the sport. In fact it is one of the sport which has been written off from the Beijing Olympics for lack of participation (correct me if I am wrong on this Rommel).

So there is no where to go for baseball and other batted games. The trend in Olympics these days is downsizing. There are just too many sports in the Olympics that IOC have decided to phase out some of them. Besides, baseball has no other venue to compete except in the Major League Baseball in the USA or the Little League.

But for soccer, there are always competitions everywhere, locally, nationally or international. FIFA, in fact has once threatened to pull out soccer in Olympics after IOC tried to make the competition open to all professional players. FIFA did not want the idea as it will make the Fifa World Cup irrelevant if it will push through. Fifa insisted on its U-23 format but allowed two senior professional players to play for every team.

Soccer is a main crowd drawer in every Olympic games. The sport draws full capacity crowds in all its matches and IOC could not afford to lose such number of people. God Bless