KEY POINTS:
He came, he saw, he ate half a corncob, he stripped to the waist, and, boy, did he conquer. David Beckham briefly graced us with his stellar presence and we obligingly turned into a nation of groupies.
In performing its role as the engine of celebrity culture, the
mass media went above and beyond the call of duty, to the point of treating the Galaxy-Phoenix match as something resembling a sporting contest and Brand Beckham as something resembling a sporting - as opposed to a cultural - phenomenon. The teenage girls among the 31,853 spectators were under no such illusions.
Thus soccer cognoscenti, who presumably watch, week-in, week-out, the world's best players operating under intense pressure in European competitions, delivered panting accolades to Beckham's vision, the slide-rule precision of his passing and the nerveless nonchalance with which he "slotted home" a penalty.
Let's remind ourselves that this was an exhibition game between a modestly performed American franchise and the team wallowing in the depths of the A-League like a dying Soviet submarine.
Who - apart from the nation's soccer writers - has forgotten that when it comes to taking penalties when it really matters, Beckham and nerveless nonchalance are like ships that pass in the night?
Take the penalty shoot-out in the England-Portugal quarter-final at Euro 2004 when Beckham's attempt to draw first blood somehow ended up in row Q of the stand, having posed a greater threat to circling seagulls than the back of the net.
As an example of a competitor's nerve and technique failing under pressure, this was like Tiger Woods rifling a gimme putt into the shins of a spectator in the front row of the gallery.
Those left cold by the bloated artificiality of the whole exercise were provided with a merry chuckle over their Monday morning cornflakes courtesy of a column in the Wellington newspaper entirely devoted to a whinge over the highhandedness of the Galaxy PR machine. Having hyped Beckham into the biggest thing to visit since the Beatles way back in 1964, the media's reward was a post-match press conference no-show.
Welcome to CelebWorld where biting the hand that feeds you is a ritual of self-affirmation, like a peacock displaying its plumage.
But if we have to have celebrity culture we might as well have more celebrities like Beckham who handled a contemptible media ambush in Sydney with poise and admirable restraint and appears to treat his fellow professionals, bit players in The Beckham Show, with respect.
He's come a long way from the petulant ninny who got himself sent off in a vital match at the 1998 World Cup for one of the most pointless and girlish fouls ever committed.
He's also a two for one deal in that he comes with wife Posh/Victoria, the celebrated body artist.
Currently engaged in transforming herself into a character from a Japanese manga comic, Victoria has discovered a form of weight control that delivers a skeletal frame whilst leaving the bosom formidably intact. No wonder she feels right at home in Hollywood.
The odd skipped press conference aside, Beckham also understands that being a brand is a 24/7 thing. Before the Rugby World Cup, I had an All Black tell me, with more than a hint of exasperation, that New Zealanders don't seem to realise the All Blacks are one of the five biggest sporting brands on the planet.
Well, the brand isn't looking too flash right now, what with yet another display of big stage fright and All Blacks in hard currency exile queuing up to tell the British press that being an All Black ain't what it's cracked up to be. On a promotional tour of Britain Dan Carter, viewed in some quarters as the Beckham of rugby, was particularly abject, virtually soliciting offers from English clubs and snivelling about the cruel pressure of expectation exerted by the New Zealand public. The big spenders at Adidas must have been mightily impressed.
Doesn't it occur to Carter that the public who expect big things of him in the black jersey and the target audience for his underwear ad campaigns are one and the same?
Beckham mania overshadowed the announcement of Sarah Ulmer's retirement but I suspect her bond with the New Zealand public will remain well after Beckham and most of the present generation of All Blacks have faded from the collective memory.
Study the footage of Ulmer before her gold medal-winning ride at the 2004 Olympics, observe her glacial concentration and the implacable glint in her eyes, and you get a sense of what true champions are made of. Compare it to the cringe-making theatrics of some All Blacks during the haka and suddenly it all begins to make sense.