Beckham gets lowdown on subbing ahead of Bernabeu debut

England star David Beckham has received the lowdown on why he was taken off early in the second half of Real Madrid's Spanish Super Cup loss to Real Mallorca.

Beckham gave way to want-away Frenchman Claude Makelele just eight minutes after the restart with Real trailing 2-1 after his corner had allowed Luis Figo to score the opening goal.

Real went on to lose by the same scoreline but looked a more cohesive unite with Makelele giving the side added shape from deep whereas Beckham, playing in the centre, had become lost in a midfield snarl-up of too many bodies.

Coach Carlos Queiroz had hauled Beckham off a week earlier in a dull goalless draw at Valencia in a final pre-season warm-up but after the Englishman again failed to find his form he suffered the same indignity again and kicked a water bottle as he went off.

But Queiroz said the whole performance of the team had lacked a cutting edge and taking Beckham off was not a slight on the player's own showing.

"I sacrificed him as I had to take off Raul Bravo for Francisco Pavon and needed Makalele to bolster the defence," Queiroz, Beckham's assistant coach last season at Manchester United, told Marca sports daily.

Bravo, already suffering from gastroenteritis, was an experimental centre half but the move did not come off against a highly-mobile Mallorcan attack.

Whether Makelele, who is insisting on a substantial payrise, will again steal some of Beckham's limelight is less clear - although Real president Florentino Perez insists the player whose contract runs out in 2006 is going nowhere.

Makelele says he earns only a fifth of some of his teammates - mentioning no names.

With so many top stars battling for a starting place AS sports daily chose an ironic moment to show a picture of Beckham,'s wife Victoria, noting that her next single is due to be entitled ... The Jealous Ones.