Beckham complied with the wishes of his Real Madrid teammate, getting the only goal in England's 1-0 win over Ecuador.

“He brought me good luck,” Beckham said later. “It was nice to silence a few people.”

If only communicating was that easy all the time for Real Madrid and other European soccer teams with international rosters. For instance, Real Madrid - which plays Real Salt Lake on Saturday in a 7:30 p.m. exhibition at Rice-Eccles Stadium - is comprised of players from Spain, Brazil, England, Italy, the Netherlands and Uruguay.

A team official said Spanish is Real's “standard” language, with a little Italian mixed in because new coach Fabio Capello just came from Italian power Juventus.

“The language [barrier], it is always an [issue] for clubs such as ours,” Capello said, through an interpreter, at Tuesday's news conference. The coach speaks excellent Spanish, having coached Real Madrid some 10 years ago.

On this year's club, striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy, a native of Holland who recently was acquired from Manchester United, is perhaps having the most difficult time understanding his teammates. He's taking Spanish lessons, paid for by the club, but said Tuesday it is a slow process.

“I'm [picking up Spanish] little by little,” he said.

Luckily, Van Nistelrooy speaks English - almost all Europeans are taught English in grade school - and can rely on Brits Beckham and Jonathan Woodgate for help. Capello does not speak English.

“There is a language barrier, and it would be easy to just hang out with the English-speaking players,” Beckham told the Web site soccerjones.com. “But that would be irritating for the others.”

Ashley House, an announcer for Real Madrid TV who travels with the team, said Beckham's Spanish after three years with Real Madrid “is awful, but he tries hard. He understands Spanish, but usually answers questions [from the media] in English, which he obviously feels more comfortable with.”

House said the team's six Brazilians, whose native tongue is Portuguese, picked up Spanish quickly because the languages are similar.

“Besides, you learn 10 phrases in soccer and you can get by,” he said. "It's not that complicated a sport, language-wise.”

But when he retired at the end of the 2005-06 season, Frenchman Zinedine Zidane said poor communication was one of the reasons why Real Madrid has struggled the past three years.

“With so many star labels, it was hard for the coach to discipline the players and the players themselves couldn't communicate with each other well because nobody wanted to upset each other,” he told a London newspaper.

Andrea Canales of ESPN.com, who covered Real Madrid when it played the Los Angeles Galaxy last summer at the Home Depot Center, said she definitely could tell there are communication conflicts over language and style with the team.

“There is conflict in terms of style and emphasis,” she said. “Even in that game they played against the Galaxy, you had Michael Owen, who's really a classic goal scorer [and no longer with the team] just wanting to get the ball up top. You could see him on the side trying to make his run while Zidane and [Luis] Figo [also departed] were doing their little midfield plays of possession and back and forth.

“You could see the expression on Michael Owen's face, like, 'Kick the ball to the goal! I want to get it into the goal,' ” but he had a hard time expressing that to them.

Tribune reporter Michael C. Lewis contributed to this report.

drew@sltrib.com

Where they're from

Real Madrid's current roster includes players from six countries. Here's where they are from:

Spain: Raul, Raul Bravo, Michel Salgado, Iker Casillas, Diego Lopez, Sergio Ramos, Ivan Helguera, Paco Pavon, Adan, Ruben De la Red, Javier Balboa, Javi Garcia, Juanfran

Brazil: Emerson, Roberto Carlos, Robinho, Cicinho, Julio Baptista

Italy: Fabio Cannavaro, Cassano

England: David Beckham, Jonathan Woodgate

Netherlands: Ruud Van Nistelrooy

Uruguay: Pablo Garcia

Note: Spain's Guti and Brazil's Ronaldo are not on the U.S. Tour due to injuries.