FAIL TO PREPARE, PREPARE TO FAIL

Imagine Rio tried this stunt before a European Cup final. With Keane as his captain! Marina Hyde in the Guardian:

Someone, somewhere along the line, appears to have told Rio he was funny and this has resulted in his playing a series of pranks on his England team-mates in the style of the Ashton Kutcher-fronted MTV series Punk'd. Trailed enticements feature a wind-up in which Rio persuades Wayne Rooney he has killed a boy's dog. Hilarity is billed to ensue.

And yet . . . the prank that our Beadle manqué played on his captain precisely 10 days before England's opening World Cup match against Paraguay seems ever so slightly fraught with unnecessary risk.

In fact, I would go a shade further and suggest it is perhaps the most cretinous and indeed potentially network-closing thing ITV has done since overpaying for the Nationwide League rights. At the very least since Celebrity Love Island.

Put briefly: the driver of a car which picked up Beckham from England's Manchester HQ last week took an unscheduled detour to Moss Side, explaining that he was taking him to meet his "family" - in tones which so terrified Beckham that as the vehicle slowed to a halt at the traffic lights he flung open the door and made his exit.

Now, no one is suggesting the England captain could have been killed in the manner of the hapless flowerpot-slain child of yesterparagraph. But given his apparent panic - and a couple of kidnap threats to his kids will do that to a man - it is certainly not beyond the realms that he could have attempted to leap out even as the car was coming to a halt, which is more than enough to turn an ankle.

Without giving in to too much speculation, one senses Rio would not have looked quite so devilishly amusing at this point.

Even now there are those who might wonder whether such gadding about in a player not exactly fabled for his concentration has made Rio a hostage to fortune. The most restrained of us might be forgiven for muttering darkly to ourselves that he had better have an excellent tournament.

One costly defensive error and it will be nanoseconds before I find myself wondering if the incident might have been avoided if Rio had spent a little less time faking canine deaths and a little more working on his game.

Still, it is of course enormously generous of him to continue to come up with new ways of sharing his talents with us - he already has a record label - particularly given the doubtless unwanted boost to his own profile in which these ventures result.

As a heads up for next time, Rio may be assured that the only place anyone sane wishes to be entertained by him is on the pitch. Most of us can live without him lavishing so much of his attentions on his hilarious wind-ups, at least until the USA coach Bruce Arena feels moved to name Ashton Kutcher in his squad