David Beckham was one of those who chased as hard as anyone. He's also one of those whose celebrity lifestyle may not be conducive to the modern demands made upon the professional footballer.
The former Bundesliga and German midfield star Felix Magath, the new manager of Bayern Munich, made the point when discussing how and why the mighty had fallen in such numbers here in Portugal.
Are the national team managers finding it harder to coach the bigreputation millionaires?
Even the national hero here, Luis Figo, has dramatically failed to live up to Portuguese expectations. He left the field in a sulk Luis Felipe Scolari took him off against England. He's been one of the biggest disappointments-along with Beckham, Zinedine Zidane of France and Raul of Spain. What do they have in common? They're all rich and all play for Real Madrid and, as Beckham himself admitted: "We don't do much conditioning work at Real."
This, of course, is little consolation to Eriksson. He and his captain are so close that they win and lose together. The mere suggestion that he might replace Beckham as captain is absurd. Another captain now, with Beckham still in the team, would be like a third person in a marriage. It wouldn't work.
The Beckham-Eriksson alliance will remain in place until Beckham retires from international football or Eriksson decides that it's time to move on.
Beckham will lead England through the qualifying programme for the next World Cup in Germany and Eriksson will select the bulk of those players on duty here. He has been criticised for his tactics but he basically devised a strategy to suit the players he had available. He did not have too many options.
Those most vulnerable to the Eriksson axe in the next couple of years include David James, Emile Heskey, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt and Keiron Dyer.
Those pressing for places include Rio Ferdinand and Jonathan Woodgate, fringe players like Scott Parker and Joe Cole, and relatively untried men like Chris Kirkland, Glen Johnson, Jermain Defoe, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Jlloyd Samuel.
We go through a similar purge and re-birth every two years and the end result is invariably the same: 1966 remains an elite, untouchable page in football history.
However you package it, the fact remains that the cool Swede - - who's returned here to watch the final stages of the tournament - - has done less well than Bobby Robson, whose side reached the World Cup semi-finals in 1990 and Terry Venables, whose team made the last four at Euro 96.
After the disappointments of 2002 and 2004, he will be allowed one more chance to justify his enormous salary in the 2006 World Cup and, if there's no improvement, I suspect there will be a re-think at the Football Association. Three strikes - and out!
