The England captain’s presence to lead out his team following a remarkable recovery from a broken metatarsal bone in his left foot three months ago was certainly a morale booster for his relatively inexperienced team, who are the youngest squad in this World Cup. Even more remarkable though, was the poise with which Beckham carried his latest hairstyle, a more conservative version of his earlier Mohawk hairdo. (Does the Red Rooster ring a bell, anyone?) The 37 year-old David Seaman must be tearing his ponytail out in jealousy at all the adulation his captain has been receiving.

Still, the Manchester United star’s importance to his country could hardly be understated, and England got off to a composed start with some fine football orchestrated by Beckham’s pin-point passes pinged all over the field. Sweden looked oddly out of sorts in the first half and were tormented by their opponents’ energetic overlapping full-backs Danny Mills and Ashley Cole. Darius Vassell ran at the under siege Swedish defence every chance he had, while Rio Ferdinand nonchalantly marshaled his back-line to good effect.

How ironic, then, that England’s goal should be scored by their worst player in the first half. Sol Campbell played as if he was tip-toeing through a minefield at the heart of England’s defence, with his hesitancy providing a few nail-biting moments for his Swedish manager on the bench. However, when England won another corner on the left in the 24th minute and Beckham whipped in a wicked in-swinging cross to draw Magnus Hedman off his line, it was Campbell who towered above all to power a header into an unguarded net.

That was the only crest that England would be able to reach in this match though. As the still-unfit Beckham’s influence on the match waned with each passing minute, so the Swedes grew from strength to strength. Suddenly Paul Scholes and Owen Hargreaves went missing in England’s midfield, Emile Heskey looked lost and confused on the left, while Beckham hardly got a touch of the ball in the second half.

Sweden gradually went through the gears with England in disarray, and deservedly equalized on the hour mark by capitalizing on a glaring error by Danny Mills. The Leeds player attempted to chest a cross back to David Seaman but was let down by his poor control. Henrik Larsson looked to latch in onto the ball only to be denied by a desperate lunging clearance by the errant defender. However the ball only fell as far to Niclas Alexandersson just outside the box, and the Everton midfielder coolly feinted his way past a defender before thumping a venomous drive into the net to restore parity for his team.

England never recovered from that blow and lost the plot completely as they were completely over-run by their opponents. Kieron Dyer, just recently recovered from a knee injury himself, replaced Beckham to little effect; while Joe Cole initially injected some guile and penetration for England on the left but seemed to be affected by the lethargic air of despondency around him as the game wore on.

Then David Seaman had to rescue his team with two outstanding saves from Teddy Lucic and Marcus Allback as Sweden went in for the kill. The English had succumbed to Murphy’s Law, and even a cardboard cut-out of their Swedish manager, Sven Goran Eriksson, draped in his home country’s scarf, popped up among the mischievous Swedish fans. The blood-letting never came though, and in the end both teams had to settle for a dissatisfactory point each. A beautiful Beckham but an ugly showing by England.

England: Seaman; Mills, Cole, R. Ferdinand, Campbell; Beckham (Dyer, 63rd), Scholes, Heskey, Hargreaves; Owen, Vassell (J. Cole, 74th)

Sweden: Hedman; Mellberg, Mjallby, Jakobsson, Lucic; Linderoth, Alexandersson, Ljungberg, M. Svensson (A. Svensson, 56th); Allback, Larsson