It’s the moment of truth for David Beckham.

Today at 1pm Steve McClaren names his squad for the friendly against Brazil at Wembley and the crucial qualifier against Estonia a few days later.

Rumour has it that Becks is in line for a recall after showing some scintillating form for Real Madrid over the last few months. McClaren himself didn’t deny it.

Asked about the possible return of the former captain, he said: “Is the door open to Beckham? I never said it was closed. I keep my eye on everyone and David is one that I said from day would be monitored.”

Of course there is no certainty in that statement either way. But I have this sneaky feeling that McClaren will stick Becks’ name down on his list today.

If he doesn’t then I think it will be fair to say Goldenballs’ England career is well and truly over. Out of sight, out of mind and you can’t get much more out of sight than the depths of the American soccer league.

However, if Becks makes the squad and ends up playing against Estonia I have a feeling he might just be the catalyst McClaren needs to save his job and to save England’s faltering qualifying campaign.

It’s the sort of heroic return that Becks’ career has been made up of.

Champions League final

Ironic isn’t it.

Twice these two clubs have met in the Champions League final and, on both occasions, the worst team won.

Two years ago it is undeniable that Milan played the prettier, more attractive football. Despite their magnificent comeback, Liverpool were undoubtedly the lesser of the two teams. Yet they still went on to win on penalties.

On Wednesday it was the opposite. Liverpool played the better football but ended up on the losing side thanks to a couple of moments of magic from Inzaghi.

Maybe if these two meet up in the Champions League final for third time one day we may actually have a case of the team that deserves to win going on to win…

Blades’ new manager

So that’s it then. The Blades have a new manager in place in the form of ex-England and Manchester United legend Bryan Robson.

Robbo was installed on Tuesday just a week after Neil Warnock left the club ‘by mutual consent’ after presiding over their relegation from the Premiership.

So far Bryan’s appointment has been met mostly with displeasure by all the United fans I have talked to who seem to be entirely underwhelmed by the former Middlesborough and West Brom boss.

Interestingly there are two very opposite ways of looking at his managerial career so far. If you want to put a positive spin on it you can say he got Middlesborough promoted twice, got them to three Cup finals and then saved West Brom from relegation.

If, however, you are going for the negative angle, you could say that, so far during his career, Robson has relegated Middlesborough, West Brom and Bradford.

The internet is currently flooded with fans of those three teams saying what a stupid move Sheffield Untied have made and how much they will regret it, that the football will be dire under Robson and that the best we can now hope for is mid-table.

Personally, I think I will reserve judgement until I have seen what Robbo is capable of first hand. Although you can get an indication of his ability from past jobs, this is a different club, with different players, different fans and different circumstances. This could, in all honesty, be the time when Robson experience as a player and manager finally clicks and he produces a beautiful football team.

Knowing our luck, it won’t be. But you can at least dream.

Either way, it will be a nice change just to have a manager that is not universally detested by every other manager and supporter around. Very nice.

Leroy and Torquay

There have been a lot of mad managerial moments in football’s history but I think recent developments at Torquay will take some beating.

Leroy Rosenior was appointed as new manager of the relegated club last week and went through all the press conferences and interviews that go with the job.

Ten minutes later the chairman who appointed him called him up to tell him he had sold the club and the new owners wanted to appoint their own man.

Leroy admitted he knew the sale may happen one day.

“It was something I knew may happen but I didn’t expect it to happen after 10 minutes,” he said before returning to his car with its still-warm engine.

Up until this incident the shortest ever managerial appointment was Dave Basset at Crystal Palace back in 1984 – a reign which lasted just four days. But that’s a whole 5,750 minutes more than Leroy got. Bless him.

Good quotes

Quite a few good quotes over the past week or so.

Mark Lawrenson, commentating during the dull as dishwater FA Cup final, said: “This is a good advert for the cricket season.” Too true, mate.

Meanwhile Reading defender Michael Duberry gave us a fascinating insight into how his former Chelsea team mate Mark Hughes sees himself.

“My fondest memory of him is his passport picture – it was a Panini sticker of himself. He was a legend,” he said.

And finally, best banner of the week was spotted at the FA Cup final: “Jose’s dog is innocent!”

Contact James on: [email protected]