Beckham: "I'm ready"

England captain David Beckham says he is fit to last ninety minutes against Sweden on Sunday.

Beckham asserted today that his recovery from a broken foot injury was near completion after his return to full training this week and he is set to start against Sweden in a tournament he has looked forward to for ages.

"There is an enormous amount of pressure at the World Cup finals, there's always that level of expectation," he said at a press conference today.

"But we've set those standards and now it's up to us to carry that through into big competitions."

"It's important to keep our feet on the ground because we are aware of the hype back home from speaking to family and friends and we've got a few newspapers in the hotel. But it's nice to see and its nice for the players."

England are expected to face a very tough fight to get out of the toughest of the eight groups in the opening stage of the finals which start tomorrow.

"This is serious stuff and we're not here to have a laugh," he said.

"We've got to believe we can win games. There's no point in going into any game thinking we can get a draw and that will be good enough.

"Now we're fully focused on Sweden but we want to go as far as we can. That is our intention."

"If we went in worrying about the other team, we're going to have big problems. We believe we can beat Sweden and go on from there."

"We're not taking anything for granted. They're a good team with very good players so we'll take it as it comes."

"When I was younger I dreamt of playing in an FA Cup final and winning the league and playing at Wembley to lift a trophy," he said.

"I was lucky enough to do that and now it would be nice to have some success at international level."