All of England is looking for a scapegoat after another major tournament disappointment, but captain David Beckham is not the man they should pinpoint. He is a sad victim of circumstance.

Instead, there is good reason to direct plenty of flak towards Florentino Perez and Jorge Valdano, the president and sporting director of Real Madrid last season, for Beckham's troubling fitness levels at Euro 2004.

It was Perez and Valdano who directed transfer operations at the Bernabeu in the 2003/04 season, with coach Carlos Queiroz's hands tied, and Madrid were damned from the first whistle of last season when they began the campaign with a bare-bones squad.

Beckham's surprise that much of last season's training was spent focusing on ballwork, rather than the fitness and physical element of the game, was revealed after England's Euro 2004 elimination.

He said: "I don't think we do as much conditioning work in Madrid as we did at United.

"That is the way it is in the Spanish league. I didn't feel as fit in the second half of last season.

"Maybe it has spilled over into this tournament but I am not going to make excuses."

Queiroz asked for additional players to bolster his squad, and upon his dismissal at the end of a trophyless season, the coach admitted that he almost walked away from the club in January when Perez and Valdano failed to act on his requests.

"I said to the club, let's think about the squad in December and take the key decisions," said Queiroz.

"You can't have a squad of 21 players and have Real Madrid's ambitions. I said at the start of the season we needed 23 or 24. I was very worried about a squad as short as that and with so little experience."

As a result, Queiroz's training sessions often constituted very little more than warm-up routines, and technical exercises.

He could not afford training-ground injuries to any of the 'Galacticos', the club's superstar element.

So important are the likes of Beckham, Ronaldo, Raul, Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo and Roberto Carlos, that Queiroz would not risk any strains, twists or muscle tears in training.

They were not pampered, because these players were playing every match, often two per week given the club's Champions League and Copa del Rey commitments,

But there were no suitable replacements, and a direct consequence of the star sextet playing hard but being short on fitness training was that their performances tailed off to disastrous effect over the closing three months of season.

Beckham was not the only Euro 2004 flop from Real Madrid.

If you blinked, you missed Raul, while Zinedine Zidane scored three goals but was just two minutes away from a massive French media backlash in their opening game against England.

He showed genius with the free-kick equaliser and then thumped home the winning penalty, but Zidane was fortunate that such set-piece opportunities presented themselves at an opportune moment.

Ivan Helguera and Raul Bravo were anonymous as the Spaniards bowed out in the first round, while Luis Figo has so far flattered to deceive, even though Portugal are semi-finalists and still alive in the competition.

He has been outshone by Cristiano Ronaldo and was even hauled off in the quarter-final against England, with coach Luiz Felipe Scolari revered for that brave decision.

The long-time hero was sacrificed for some short-term success, as Scolari recognised that Figo's fellow midfielders were starting to 'carry' their team-mate, and Portugal were suddenly more threatening for the change.

It might be recalled how Madrid were leading the Primera Liga by eight points in early March, and how they were preparing for a Copa del Rey final against a struggling Real Zaragoza and a Champions League quarter-final against Monaco.

Embarrassing setbacks followed in both cup ties, and with their momentum halted, the league lead evaporated.

Madrid finished fourth, seven points adrift of champions Valencia, and also behind both Barcelona and Deportivo La Coruna.

There was collective burnout in the squad, training sessions saw exhausted players trot through the motions, and the strain told on everyone.

Beckham was sent off in Madrid's penultimate match of the season, Zidane was red-carded two games earlier, Figo the game before that, and defender Francisco Pavon in the previous contest.

March's champions-elect slumped to five straight defeats at the end of the campaign, prompting Queiroz's sacking and Valdano's resignation.

Beckham took a physical and mental beating in 2003/04, and suddenly it seems an age since those days at Manchester United, where Sir Alex Ferguson would astutely let his key men sit out games on a rotational basis.

He might have had his run-ins with the fiery Scot, but as a United player Beckham rarely looked as tired in an England shirt as he did in Lisbon on Thursday.