“It took a while before I was accepted fully by the Hamburg players,” he recalled.Putting the early difficulties behind him, Keegan impressed everybody by scoring goals and making goals and conversing in German There was great harmonium in the Hamburg dressing-room.. Zinedine Zidane said yesterday that he was determined to retire when his contract at Real Madrid expires in 2005. He insists that there will be no talking him out of the decision.Zidane, who is in China on Real’s pre-season tour, said: “I have two years left to my contract with Real Madrid and until then I will play as well as possible, whatever the competition. After those two years I will retire.”His final matches for France are set to come at next summer’s European Championships in Portugal, given that he has ruled himself out of the 2006 World Cup.Zidane was a member of the France teams which won the World Cup in 1998 and European Championships in 2000, and has 82 caps for his country. He scored the winning goal in Real’s European Cup final triumph over Bayer Leverkusen last year.Meanwhile, Zidane’s new team-mate, David Beckham, who joined Real last month from Manchester United for £24.5m, has admitted that his lack of Spanish has caused him problems in training.”Everything will be easier when I have learnt the language, although I admit that it won’t be easy,” said Beckham, who is in Kunming, China, for Real’s 18-day tour of the Far East.Beckham acknowledged his difficulties in training, even though the sessions were led by Real’s new coach, Carlos Queiroz. Queiroz was with Beckham last season at United as assistant coach.”He does the training sessions in Spanish and I’m still finding it hard to understand what he wants,” said the England captain, who praised his colleagues for “a great effort” at helping him with his initial attempts in the language.Beckham is expected to make his Real debut on 2 August against the Dragon Team in Beijing. The Spanish side then play FC Tokyo in Tokyo on 5 August before facing China three days later in Hong Kong.

Their final game is on 10 August against Thailand in Bangkok.Real return to Spain to visit Valencia on 17 August in a preseason exhibition game before travelling to Mallorca a week later to play the first leg of the Spanish Supercup.Beckham’s first match at the Bernabeu Stadium is on 27 August in the return leg against Mallorca.. Graeme Souness escaped a third touchline ban in 18 months yesterday and was instead reprimanded and fined £10,000 by a Football Association disciplinary commission. The FA gave credit to Souness for admitting the charge, and made allowances for the fact the incident happened so long ago.Souness was sent to the stands during the match by referee Andy D’Urso. Chelsea are considering raising their offer for the midfielder Emerson after Roma refused a £17.5m offer for the Brazil captain.

Chelsea have also been linked with a £15m offer for Samuel Eto’o, the Real Mallorca striker. A week after setting a club record transfer fee of £17m for Damien Duff, Chelsea would have to break new ground again to make Emerson their fifth major summer signing. Roma’s sporting director, Franco Baldini, confirmed the Blues had failed with their latest offer, but seemed to leave the door ajar for another approach.”We have refused a €25m [£17.5m] offer from Chelsea,” he said. “The player wants to stay at Roma, but it is the club who will decide the player’s future. Chelsea’s bid so far is the most significant offer.”Roma also complained that Chelsea had previously made an illegal approach direct to Emerson Baldini said: “The situation is simple.