England saluted a wonder - a one-touch wonder - on Saturday night after inflating their hope of progress to the Quarter-finals of Euro 2000 by beating Germany.

Never mind that Manchester United's David Beckham did little besides set up Alan Shearer's first goal in eight games with a stunningly-struck free kick in Charleroi.

What Beckham did do in that 53rd minute, bending the ball round and through a whole line of players, was something at which to marvel. Posh would have been proud of her man.

Quite how he pulled off his latest stunt may well be a secret between himself and his club's groundstaff who, reputedly, lean wearily on their shovels and forks while he practises long after fellow players have gone home.

But, please, don't ask us to buy into the notion that the player who laid on goals for Paul Scholes and Steve McManaman against Portugal last Monday has acquired legendary status.

A recent poll of international managers returned the verdict that Beckham is the second-best player in the world. He is not even the second best player at these championships, with Portugal's Luis Figo and Rui Costa being but two of those ahead of him.

Beckham, indeed, may go down in history as the one who hardly had to break sweat in order to achieve universal acclaim and a fortune in the process.

His most obvious skill is the most fundamental of all and that which too few players ever master - kicking the ball with uncanny precision. His ability to do so at set pieces would bring a tear even to a Brazilian eye.

Virtuosos like Rivelino and Jairzinho introduced the phenomenon of the swerving shot which so unnerves opposing goalkeepers. It is to football what the googly is to cricket.

If ever England were going to beat Germany for the first time in a meaningful match since the World Cup Final of 1966, it was always likely to take such a contribution from Beckham.

There was no great fluency about their approach play, no sign of the pace and cunning which Portugal applied in coming back at them in Eindhoven to win 3-2.

England, notwithstanding Beckham's latest act of sorcery, remain weighed down by ordinariness, albeit less so than the Germans. Yet, that said, we shouldn't deny Kevin Keegan and his players a considerable amount of credit for standing up to the task which confronted them.

It requires a strong mentality to get the better of the Germans at any time although, so far as England were concerned, no time could have been better for them to do so than the weekend.

Franz Beckenbauer was quoted, correctly or otherwise, in the run-up to the competition as saying that Germany were out of their depth. They certainly look to have been so far, drawing first with Romania when they might have lost and boasting only one point from two games.

They were tournament winners in 1996, without being the best side in England. They looked disjointed and dishevelled in France 98 and have gone back still more in the interim.

Even at the peak of their power, Germany were never noted for flair and invention. This observation applies all the way back to the 1954 World Cup Final, when they beat a superb Hungarian side who had defeated them in an earlier round.

What they had was physical power, efficiency of movement and the profound belief in their own destiny. Poor Erich Ribbeck, Germany's current coach, inherited them from Berti Vogts when even these qualities were in a state of diminution.

No longer are they the side all others have to overcome although, again, this should not be cited as reason for disparaging England in victory.

Keegan had them primed better than against Portugal. No sooner did they move in front with Shearer's goal than the coach tightened things up by taking off a striker, Michael Owen, and sending on a midfield player, Steven Gerrard.

If they don't advance to the last eight, and it is less than certain yet that they will do so, Keegan must live thereafter with the guilt of not having been so prudent against the Portuguese.

He counted the German match as the most important of his 15 months in charge and was moved to wax lyrical about its outcome in two languages - sometimes both in the same sentence.

'Ich war 12 jahre alt when England won the World Cup,' he started saying in response to an after- match question from a follower of the opposition.

Keegan was so pleased that, after 34 years, England had beaten Germany in a major tournament. Just as proud, too, that they did it under his stewardship.

He couldn't have been entirely confident about their ability to prevail during the better part of a first half in which Beckham and Scholes were well looked after by Germany.

Indeed, it was only in the minutes leading up to the interval, when Owen had a header saved spectacularly and Scholes a shot parried, that they began to sense a celebration.

Germany had not put David Seaman under the same pressure. When they did make a chance, from which they should have equalised, Carsten Jancker, made a hash of it.

'It was a defeat which really hurt,' coach Ribbeck admitted dejectedly. 'We lost to a simple dead-ball situation. We ran like hell after that and missed a few opportunities to score.'

Ribbeck, one fancies, will be moving back into retirement before long, having been lured out of it to prepare Germany for a competition which they are patently unfit to win.

He could have said that the result would have been different had Oliver Bierhoff been fit to play in attack. He could have said any number of things, by way of trying to mask Germany's deficiencies.

Ribbeck resisted the temptation to do so. He was left to try and work out how the hell Beckham contrived to do what he did with that free kick.

The Old Trafford celebrity is a one-touch wonder, right enough. The fact that he raised one finger to his abusers in Eindhoven several nights earlier suddenly had ceased to be an issue.