Beckham's friendly fire

Beckham: Friendly fire

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Los Angeles Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena wants David Beckham to miss England's August friendly against Holland.

Former USA boss Arena is keen for Beckham to be with Galaxy as much as possible after his extended loan deal with AC Milan comes to an end on 1st July.

England tackle the Dutch in Amsterdam on 12th August, but Arena is planning to speak with Beckham and Fabio Capello to request that the former skipper does not feature.

Beckham has always maintained that his main motivation behind his desire to remain with Milan was because he was keen to cement his place in the England squad for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

Contact

Arena told the Los Angeles Times: "I would certainly request that David not be called in for the friendly.

"It's probably not necessary for him to be there, and at the appropriate time I will discuss this with David and get his impression as well as contact the English."

Arena believes Beckham would be much better equipped to join the Galaxy midway through the MLS season than he had been when first arriving at the club in July 2007.

"This situation is considerably better than it was in 2007 for a variety of reasons," he said. "One is that David is settled in LA.

"Two, he is well aware of his environment now. He knows the league, he knows the team. So I think his transition is much smoother this time around."

Arena told the LA Times he had been in contact with Beckham since the 'timeshare' agreement with Milan had been concluded and that the 33-year-old was excited about returning to the USA.

Excited

"If David is fit and in form, there's no argument that he's an excellent player," Arena said. "I just watched him play (against Atalanta) and he had another fine game.

"I know he's excited about the conclusion of all of these talks and he's going to have the opportunity finish up with Milan and then come back and hopefully complete some unfinished business in MLS.

"I actually had contact with David today," he added. "We emailed each other. He's pretty pleased he's coming back. He is happy he's coming back. He wants to be in LA. He wants to take on this challenge.

"Despite public statements that have been made over the past couple of months, I think we're getting back a player that will want to be here and is motivated to do well. I want to make that clear.

"If it was the other way around, that this player had no interest in being here, we would not have done this. I can guarantee that. I'm very optimistic that David's addition to our team in July is going to be a positive."