As Paul Simon once sang, there are 50 ways to leave your lover (although he only bothered to outline about 10 of them). But how many ways are there to junk your underperforming right midfielder and captain?
1. Tell him to his face that, sadly, and despite all the great things he has done for England before, his form hasn't been good enough since 2002.
2. Tell his children to whisper "give up" into his ear as he sleeps.
3. Put cheese in his boots. By the time he gets to the warm up he'll think he's developed a bad fungal condition
4. Tell him that Gillette are rubbish
5. And Adidas
6. And that his own line of fragrances (plural) smell like a toilet.
7. Show him, via diagrams, that if England are going to change to playing with just one striker then they need pace and penetration on the wings more than ever, something Beckham hasn't been offering.
8. Persuade him to take part in an am-dram production of Death on the Nile whose first, very important, rehearsal takes place at 5pm German time on Sunday.
9. Persuade him that, not only should he take the part of Doctor Ludwig Bessner, but he should be in charge of costumerie as well. Which is a big undertaking and not one that should be agreed to lightly. And did we mention that rehearsal time?
10. Straight out ambush him on the way to the Baden-Baden spa and do his achilles.
11. While you're there have a pedicure - ask for Bruno.
12. Invite Colin Powell, the corpse of Napoleon and, purely at random, Steven Gerrard to give presentations about the importance of good leadership in a successful team. If it clashes with Death on the Nile rehearsal, cancel rehearsal.
13. Assemble a video montage of all those clips of Beckham balling out his team-mates in odd circumstances. Like on Tuesday when he tried to blame Jamie Carragher for his own failure to deal with Henrik Larsson at a corner.
14. Tell him there's a bloody huge diamond been spotted on the loose in Baden-Baden and that whoever finds it gets to keep it.
15. Just put Aaron Lennon in the team when Becks isn't looking.
16. Explain that you didn't want to drop him, but Fifa told you to.
17. Show him a team sheet of Robinson, Carragher, Ferdinand, Terry, Cole, Hargreaves, Lampard, Gerrard, Cole, Lennon and Rooney and ask him to improve on it.
18. Tell him that Hollywood 60-yard balls are over. This year it's all about the 15-yarder to feet.
19. Pretend to be calling from reception explaining that the am-dram society are here and they're not happy about the cravats they're supposed to be wearing.
20. Challenge him to a race: the first one to Prague's the winner.
21. Offer him all your nectar points.
22. Blame it all on Sven. If he'd picked enough strikers in the first place this wouldn't have had to happen. Maybe.
