Where did it all go wrong Becks?

The exuberant boy who had the world at his feet is now more a brand than a footballer, writes Simon Hattenstone.

There is a classic David Beckham image. It dates back to well before Posh and the kids, before Beckingham Palace, before he became the people's prince, before he was a brand.

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It's 1996 and David Beckham is just a promising footballer. He has scored a miracle goal against Wimbledon from behind the halfway line. Fifty-five yards out. Astonishing. He is looking to the skies, arms raised to heaven, golden hair flopping in the sun, an ecstatic smile conveying astonishment, delight, arrogance and innocence. Beckham was 21 years old. This was his calling card for the England team. At that moment he looked as if he would conquer the world.

And in a way he has done. The England captain may well break the record number of caps for an outfield player; he has won the European Cup; he has more than held his own in the Real Madrid team.

And that's just the football. Off the pitch he is possibly the world's biggest one-man brand. For a decade now, he's been both icon and role model. And yet, as he celebrated his 30th birthday with a whirlwind holiday with wife Victoria, there seems something poignant and soiled in the David Beckham story.

The young man who scored that goal against Wimbledon didn't look as if he would ever grow old (in football terms). But for the past year football pundits have suggested his best days are behind him, that he can no longer beat a man, that in all truth he probably never could, that his only value is as a dead-ball specialist, that he is a luxury in the England team and if he wasn't Beckham he would have been dropped by now. Nowadays, more and more people are likely to agree with George Best's famous assessment of him: "I don't think he's a great player. He can't kick with his left foot, he doesn't score many goals, he can't head a ball and he can't tackle. Apart from that, he's all right."

For all his glories, Beckham may ultimately be dismissed as yet another English under-achiever should Sven Goran Eriksson's men fall short of winning the World Cup in Germany next year. For what, so far, has he ever really achieved in international championships besides getting sent off against one Argentinian team and scoring a ropy penalty against another? And how come, in his two years in Madrid, they have won nothing?

The glory of the Wimbledon image is that it shows a Beckham who knew exactly what he was and what he wanted out of life. So how did he lose his direction in these intervening years? There is something desperately sad about the 30-year-old Becks searching for his identity with yet another new mullet hairdo or tattoo. And despite all the success and riches, how he is ultimately remembered still seems strangely up for grabs — and blighted by the public's growing suspicion that nothing to do with Beckham and his wife is ever what it seems.