England's centurion proves he has a few battles left in him yet

"I've got to know him and I know it means a lot to him so I just wanted to go up to him at the end and say congratulations because I think what he's done for English football has been great," said the Gunners skipper. "I hope for him he wins many more [caps] - and I think he will."

It was when Gallas outlined his own ambition to reach the three-figure landmark that it put the achievement in perspective.

"To win 100 caps for a big country, you cannot know how difficult it is," said a 30-year-old who's slogged on the international beat for years yet still needs another 39 caps to make the ton.

Certainly, the signs from Capello afterwards were that his old Real Madrid soldier, with whom he was conversing in Spanish in the touchline last night, may get the chance to go after Bobby Moore's record for an England outfield player of 108 caps.

"I only substituted him because I already know him very well and I wanted to see other players. He plays because he deserves to play," was the manager's riposte to anyone thinking Beckham had been selected as a ceremonial one-off.

Yet, amid all the merited accolades, watching Beckham labouring so feverishly to make something, anything, happen for a side so devoid of fluidity, creativity and pace felt a little dispiriting. We'd been here before. Of course, patience is needed - after all, even Capello's Roma wasn't built in a day either - but this seemed less like a brave new world and more like back to the future.

Beckham reckoned he was most pleased with his fitness considering that his US season hasn't begun yet but the suspicion wasn't allayed here that, at 32, his remarkable engine simply can't ferry him up and down the field as ceaselessly and effectively as it once did.

"I enjoyed the hour," he said. "The most important thing for me was to prove my fitness and I thought I did that. I felt very fresh and a lot better than I thought [I would]. Playing under Fabio Capello at Real Madrid, he knows what I'm like as a player so I didn't have to prove anything there but proving my fitness was the biggest thing." He insisted that his partnership with Wes Brown down the right flank as they switched midfield and full-back roles had worked quite well. But it only served to keep Beckham pinned back more than we've ever seen him before, hitting hopeful long balls from deep, instead of doing what he's best at, delivering crosses from the danger areas in the opposition's half.

The only benefit? At least the hapless Brown could occasionally be kept out of harm's way upfield.

The game's most symbolic moment came when Beckham's failure to keep pace with the splendid Franck Ribery, the man who would have been just perfect for Arsenal if Arsene Wenger had ever fancied parting with serious money, ended with him getting booked - for the 16th time for England, incidentally - for tugging the Bayern Munich star's shirt.

The sight of a one-paced battler struggling to derail a direct and speedy creator somehow told the story of an England team still crudely trying, and failing, to catch up with Europe's best. This was a French team without its old and new wonder boys, Thierry Henry and Karim Benzema, yet they still comfortably had the most accomplished players on view in the likes of Ribery, Nicolas Anelka and Florent Malouda, a bloke who can hardly buy a game at Chelsea these days.

Neither of Capello's twin lines of approach last night looked in the same class, because whether you package them in 4-2-3-1 or plain old 4-4-2, what difference does it make when a supposedly world-class player like Ashley Cole can't deliver a single accurate cross or when Michael Owen's most eye-catching contribution in the dying moments is a 25-yard pass in midfield backwards and straight into touch?

How Capello, for all his professed admiration of England's fighting spirit, must have despaired inwardly at seeing such technical shortcomings. Amid this dismal fare, chances are he'll keep turning to someone he can trust.

Goldenboots must still really fancy his chances.