In
total, Beckham scored 86 goals in 397 games for Man United, a rate
of roughly 2 goals every 9 games, highly commendable for a midfielder.
Club
Career
Real Madrid 2003-present
On June 17, 2003, Beckham signed a four-year contract with Real
Madrid of Spain, potentially worth up to €35 million (£25
million, USD 41 million). Plus 2.
Apart from benefiting from his football ability, this transfer gives
the Spanish club an opportunity to profit from merchandising, especially
in the Far East, where Beckham is enormously popular, and Manchester
United have until now had the lion's share of interest. It is probably
no coincidence that Beckham was transferred just before Real started
a far-eastern tour, but it would be very unfair to say that his
marketing potential alone was the only reason for his transfer.
At the time of the announcement of his transfer to Real Madrid,
Beckham and his wife (Victoria) were on a week-long tour of Japan,
Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand promoting beauty products, chocolate,
motor oil, and mobile phones, which it was reported would earn them
more than the entire first year of his Real Madrid contract. (Western
journalists are excluded from the Japanese "press conferences"
organised by his sponsors because of the embarrassment they would
cause him in the West.)
He successfully completed the transfer on July 1 and was presented
with the squad number of 23 on July 2. He is believed to have chosen
the number as a tribute to his idol, Michael Jordan, who made number
23 famous with the Chicago Bulls. Real Madrid shirts bearing his
name and number were sold out in Madrid on the day his transfer
was completed and Real Madrid were expected to receive €624,000
for the sale of the shirts.
His transfer to Real Madrid has proven very fruitful for both Beckham
and the club. Beckham scored five times in his first 16 matches
(including Real's 600th goal in the European Cup/Champions League,
against Olympique Marseille on 26 November 2003), a higher scoring
rate than his last year at Manchester United (11 goals in 52 games).
He has become a favourite of the notoriously fickle Real Madrid
crowd, and established an excellent playing relationship with Ronaldo.
During the summer of 2004, Real also signed Englishmen Michael Owen
and Jonathan Woodgate.
International
Career - England
By
1998 he was a regular international, and travelled with the England
squad to the FIFA World Cup. In the second round of that competition
he received a red-card for retaliation, following a foul challenge
by the Argentine Diego Simeone. This act arguably cost England the
game (which they lost on penalties) and the chance of advancing
in the tournament. On returning home, Beckham became the target
of criticism, sometimes justified (the accusation of petulance,
for example) but much merely gratuitous. He received a similar vilification
following his dismissal for a dangerous challenge in the World Club
Championships the next year.
Following England's poor performance in the 2000 European Championship
(from which Beckham was one of the few players to emerge with credit)
and later poor performances, the departure of Kevin Keegan as manager
saw Beckham promoted to captain, initially under caretaker manager
Peter Taylor and maintained by Sven-Göran Eriksson. His leadership,
mainly by example due to his fitness and workrate helped England
to qualify for the 2002 World Cup Finals and the 1-5 defeat of Germany
in Munich during a qualifier (a pivotal event for English football
fans). The final step in Beckham's conversion from villain to hero
happened in England's 2-2 draw against Greece. Needing only one
point from the match in order to qualify for the World Cup, Beckham
dragged an otherwise poor England side to qualification with sheer
determination and a perfectly executed, last-minute free kick. Meanwhile,
taking the role of captain seems to have helped mature him, in both
skill and temperament.
Beckham played in all England's matches at Euro 2004, but failed
to shine. He had his penalty saved by former Manchester United team-mate
Fabien Barthez in his side's 2-1 defeat to France in their opening
group game. Then, when England's Quarter-Final against hosts Portugal
went to a penalty shootout, he was the first England player to attempt
a shot. Beckham fired his shot far over the crossbar and England
went on to lose the shoot-out 6-5 after Englishman Darius Vassell
also missed. Beckham later blamed the miss on the poor state of
the pitch, the British press blamed referee Urs Meier for the loss
(he had earlier disallowed a contentious goal by Sol Campbell) even
publishing his phone number and postal address.
The Spanish spectator who caught Beckham's miss put the ball up
for auction on eBay España. eBay soon determined that virtually
all of the bids, including one for €10million , were fake. When
bidding closed on 22 July, the winning bid of €28,050 was made by
the Canadian internet casino GoldenPalace.com, which announced that
it plans to exhibit the ball around the world for charitable purposes.
Beckham's celebrity lifestyle
Beckham's highly publicised marriage to Spice Girl and media celebrity
Victoria Adams, otherwise known as Posh Spice, has made them both
popular targets for the tabloid press, which has dubbed the couple
"Posh and Becks". They have two sons, Brooklyn, born March
4, 1999 and Romeo, born September 1, 2002, with a third child due
to be born in March 2005. Beckham is well-known for his frequent
hairstyle changes and has changed his hairstyle for many times after
being criticised for influencing teenagers' hairstyle.
David Beckham is, according to the Google search engine, the most
famous sports personality in the world, however the producers of
The Simpsons decided that he wasn't famous enough to make a cameo
appearance in an episode of the show set in London. He is also the
most famous metrosexual.
However, he has become more well known in North America since the
success of the British film Bend It Like Beckham. It is about a
Sikh girl whose ambition is to be a football player because she
can play like David Beckham.
In 2001, Beckham became the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
In the summer of 2003, Beckham was made an OBE in Queen Elizabeth
II's honours list.
In May of 2003 Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson ordered
David Beckham not to wear his hair band during matches. It has been
speculated that he believed it to be too effeminate.
In April 2004, the British tabloid News of the World carried claims
by his former personal assistant Rebecca Loos that he and Loos had
had an extramarital affair. A week later, a second woman, Malaysian-born
Australian model Sarah Marbeck, claimed that she had slept with
Beckham on two occasions. Beckham has denied both allegations, describing
them as "ludicrous".
In July of 2004, an intruder was arrested at David Beckham's home
for scaling a wall with a can of gasoline. The Sun newspaper reported
that the man appeared angry with Beckham and intended to burn down
the house.
Transfer
rumours
Near
the end of the 2003-04 season, The Daily Telegraph of London reported
that Beckham's major sponsors were trying to arrange for him to
return to England for the 2004-05 season. Sources within the family
told the Telegraph that Beckham would almost certainly be back in
London. Real Madrid denied rumours that they were interested in
selling Beckham, and banned British reporters from access to the
team.
Because of the extremely high fee that Real Madrid Football team
could command for a Beckham deal, and the fact that the other teams
that could afford the fee, had financial constraints (Arsenal, Liverpool)
or personality issues (Man U) that would have made a deal unlikely,
speculation immediately focused on Chelsea, with its billionaire
owner Roman Abramovich. Adding fuel to the rumours, Chelsea's manager
at that time, Claudio Ranieri, told an Italian newspaper that the
club was pursuing both Beckham and Ronaldo, and The Evening Standard
of London reported that Chelsea was prepared to pay £40 million
for Beckham.
However, on 20 May, Beckham, in a statement issued through his agent,
quashed the transfer rumours, stating that he would see out the
remaining three years of his contract in Madrid. He added that his
wife and sons, who had yet to move to Spain, would join him there.
In November 2004 it was reported that Real Madrid intended to offer
Beckham a two-year extension to his contract, which would effectively
keep him in Madrid for the remainder of his playing career.
Books
Beckham:
Both Feet on the Ground: An Autobiography by David Beckham &
Tom Watt (ISBN 0060570938)
Beckham: My World by David Beckham & Dean Freeman (ISBN 0340792701)
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