"Put me on, coach"

The boy and I peeled off from the main tour party to spend ten euros on a tour of the Bernabeu, there to gawp at the stainless steel lavatories in the away dressing room and to have our pictures taken in the very place where Beckham, Owen and Woodgate spent most of their time at Real Madrid, the bench. You go through the museum and you can see why they signed these Brits. Most of their truly great players looked like Zidane and Roberto Carlos. Faces only a mother could love, as an old colleague used to say.