Beckham - felt England could have won. (Allsport)

By John Curtis, PA Sport, Japan

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Sven-Goran Eriksson has admitted that England did not see the best of skipper David Beckham during the 2002 World Cup.

Beckham had been the key performer in ensuring that England overcame an uncertain start to their qualifying programme to reach the finals.

In the last month the Manchester United star has been only a shadow of the player that had taken on Greece almost single-handed at Old Trafford to clinch a place in Japan and Korea.

Eriksson was full of praise for the way that the 27-year-old fought back from a broken foot to participate in all five of England's matches after a seven week lay-off.

But he acknowledged the difficulties that his on the field lieutenant had in playing catch-up after so long out of action in terms of match fitness.

Beckham himself had previously admitted that he had to "pace himself" through the initial part of the tournament so that he could survive the full 90 minutes.

Eriksson admitted: "David Beckham can play better football than he did in this tournament although, if you consider that he had been side-lined for seven weeks, I think he did very well.

"But, when you have the problems he had, you can't expect a player to be 100 fit in the same way as he was before Christmas."

Beckham said: "I felt fit enough and that was enough for me - and that was enough for the manager.

"When you do come into a big competition like this, and have been out for nearly eight weeks, then it's going to be hard but I felt that I was coming back to full fitness."

He also felt it unjustified to claim that England would have done better had the players ruled out through injury been available - the most notable exception being midfielder Steven Gerrard.

He said: "I think the whole 23-man squad did excellently all the way through the tournament. I think it would be a little unfair of me to say that, if other players were fit, then we would have gone all the way."

Beckham admitted that he privately believed all the way through the competition that England were good enough to win the World Cup.

But he insisted that there should not be a downbeat mood over going out in the quarter-finals to Brazil and that a young squad would benefit massively from the experience.

Beckham said: "I think overall that we have done ourselves justice because the expectations were very high, and were set very high.

"I've been feeling throughout this competition that we were going to go all the way personally. I had not told anyone because I didn't want to upset anything but I had a funny feeling that was going to happen.

"It's not happened but, even though we are disappointed, to reach the point we did makes me pleased as captain for the rest of the players and proud of them.

"We have got to believe that we can get this close to the World Cup final again and everyone will learn from playing in this competition. It is good that the team is young enough so that they will get another chance. The future is bright.

"I don't think there are any problems with our game. We have to work hard at things that have gone wrong and we will do. We have got the team to do that."

Beckham admitted: "My memory of the tournament will be beating Argentina. It was disappointing to go out to Brazil but, even if people say they are not as good as they used to be, they still have got world-class players."