Beckham says bye

David Beckham cuts a sad and teary figure on the front of the Guardian, Times and Telegraph.

The England superstar has resigned his captaincy of the national side after Saturday's latest penalty shoot-out disaster against Portugal.

However, the Telegraph reports that Becks had made the decision to give up the job of skipper some time ago.

England's World Cup exit, though, obviously precipitated the Real Madrid midfielder's public announcement.

The Telegraph says Becks' "departure" - although he still wants to carry on playing for England - "marks the end of an era" for the man who became "part footballer, part model and part global brand".

Of Beckham's England future, the Guardian is more circumspect: it says new boss Steve McClaren "may feel that a 31-year-old winger whose effectiveness has been reduced to taking free kicks is now surplus to requirements".

So to departing coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, five-and-a-half year salary from the FA around the cool Ł24m mark.

On the subject of the sent-off Wayne Rooney, Sven gets steely in the face of the press' extra-sharp knives; there again, he won't have to contend with them directly again, so he's nothing to lose.

Sven snapped "pay attention" (very un-Sven) to the assembled hacks and told them to "take care" of "golden boy" Rooney, not "kill him".

He added: "I don't need him in the future, but you do."

The departing boss might want to avoid the Independent today, while he's at it.

"Disgraceful. Preposterous. Disastrous," booms the paper's venerable sports writer James Lawton.

But we expect Sven knew that already.