The door is still narrowly open for David Beckham to be involved in the Olympic Games. Team GB manager Stuart Pearce said overnight he "fully expects" Beckham to be available for his four-man standby list for the Games.
Pearce surprised many by not choosing Beckham in his 18-man squad, unveiled yesterday, but fiercely defended his decision to leave him out. "I'm a football man, I pick solely on football ability," said Pearce, who insisted that he would not have taken the manager's job if there had been any pressure from above to select the man so important to London winning the bid.
"If [FA chairman David Bernstein] had said there were certain individuals who had to be in the squad," Pearce said, "I probably wouldn't have taken the job, and I don't know any manager worth his salt who would. Right through the whole process I've had carte blanche [regarding selection]."
When asked why there were only English and Welsh players in his squad, Pearce again insisted that he had selected on merit alone. "I'm not picking on personality," he said, "I'm not picking on ticket sales and I'm certainly not picking on nationality."
Pearce said his decision not to take Beckham as one of his three overage players, and to pick Ryan Giggs, Craig Bellamy and Micah Richards instead, had been due to shortages in certain positions and the ability of his chosen overage players to fill those gaps.
