It could be a feather in Beckham’s cap

LONDON – That paragon of jet-lag defiance David Beckham turned up today hatless in a dogged snowfall, beamed like all California, chatted with his teammates on the English national soccer team at a North London practice pitch and yanked his foot up to his butt to stretch.

It’s been five continents in four months for Beckham, but the commotion around here notes that it’s also been 99 appearances in 11½ years for England’s national team, and that it’ll be a celestial 100 if he plays Wednesday night in a friendly match against France in Paris.

“It would be one of the biggest honors that I’ve ever had in my career,” Beckham said this afternoon at a news conference after practice, adding it would “also get it out of the way because everybody’s been talking about it for so long.”

Nine sleep hours in the tank after flying Saturday night and forcing himself awake all Sunday and, voila, “I’m straight back into the swing of things,” he said.

In a swing of things less swinging than usual for England, 16 European nations are getting ready for the Euro 2008 soccer tournament, for which England did not qualify. Meanwhile, England busies itself with getting-to-know-you friendlies under new manager Fabio Capello and with Beckham cap trivia.

In the storied, revered and often downright exasperating history of England’s soccer team, only four players have logged 100 “caps,” which is English for matches played. None has reached the mark since the goalkeeper Peter Shilton reached a record 125 between 1970 and 1990.

After Shilton come cherished people who turn up outside stadiums as statues, including defender Bobby Moore (1962-73) with 108, midfielder/striker Bobby Charlton (1958-70) with 106 and defender Billy Wright (1946-59) with 105.

Beckham logged cap No. 1 on Sept. 1, 1996, in a victorious 1998 World Cup qualifier in Kishinev, Moldova, the Daily Mirror judging his coming-out “a professional, sound debut rather than spectacular but enough to retain his place.”

He might reach 100 in Paris rather than in Wembley Stadium, where England will play the United States on May 28, but rated that imperfection “not such a big deal for me.”

In between, he has navigated the most melodramatic pratfalls (a red card against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup) and crescendos (a free-kick goal against Greece in 2002 World Cup qualifying), plus the potholed road since summer 2006, when then-manager Steve McClaren dropped Beckham.

When Beckham flourished for Capello playing at Real Madrid, McClaren reached back for Beckham in 2007 and provided caps 95 through 99, the 99th featuring a masterpiece cross to Peter Crouch in a crashing 3-2 loss to Croatia that quashed England’s Euro 2008 hopes.

Real Madrid sacked Capello in June, England sacked McClaren in November, and Capello didn’t choose Beckham for a friendly with Switzerland in February, presuming him insufficiently fit with the Galaxy in the off-season.

“I never thought a year, two years ago, I never thought I was going to make 95 caps, let alone to be here,” Beckham said, again a focus of a nation to the point that you could see him on TV Monday morning blowing his nose into the ground, the cameras ever craving detail.

Now Capello wards off suspicions of sentiment in fluent Italian, proclaiming it “not my style to call up someone and do them a favor,” and Beckham, while defending MLS as “a higher standard than everyone thinks” and noting the rugged two-a-day Galaxy training “with the climate over there,” also speaks wistfully and wishfully of South Africa.

That’s South Africa 2010, the World Cup, and if that seems even more farfetched than Beckham’s 100th cap seemed two years ago, consider the tepidness of England’s next generation that has enabled Beckham’s serial returns in the first place.

“There is no cavalry of fabulous, gifted young England players coming over the hill to save us,” the eminent soccer columnist Martin Samuel wrote in the Times of London, later adding, “Now Beckham is back in contention on merit and had he not made the mistake of going into premature retirement with the Los Angeles Galaxy, there would be little debate that he is England’s best option on the right flank, provided he is revitalized by the challenge.”