Frankfurt, Germany – The curve of David Beckham’s pass, shot, calling card, whatever you want to call it, seemed to travel through a dozen Paraguayan players and into the hearts of the English fans who rocked Frankfurt on Saturday afternoon.
A soccer-crazed nation, finally more interested in Beckham on the field than off it, is hoping what it saw on a hot afternoon was an omen. There Beckham stood, with a free kick 35 yards away. Four minutes into the game, Beckham bent a perfectly arced pass over the penalty box, and it appeared to gain momentum as it headed for the corner of the net.
Paraguay’s Carlos Gamarra tried to head it out. He only made it worse. It grazed his head and went into the net for a 1-0 lead that stood up in England’s World Cup opener. No England player touched the ball. No need to. They’ve seen it before.
They made a movie about it, you know.
“That’s my job, to make free kicks and create goals,” said Beckham, wearing an England warm-up suit and a day’s worth of whiskers. “It’s not just my free kicks. It can be different another day. It could be someone else and another goal. But again, I’m lucky. We scored from it, and we won the game from it.”
During a life in which the past decade has been spent in a fishbowl that could hold the North Sea, Beckham, 31, never has felt more eyes stare than he does now.
Beckham is under pressure. Big pressure. He is England’s favorite son, at times a beguiling brat who confounds the teeming masses but always enchants, fascinates and occasionally charms. He is Prince Henry with a good crossing pass.
England’s captain is the world’s highest-paid soccer player at just less than $30 million a year. He owns three Ferraris, still is impossibly good-looking and is married to a pop singer who once was more famous than him. He has started two state-of-the art soccer academies and has matured into a model family man.
But for all the money and fame, a soccer-crazed nation asks: Where is the national glory? England invented soccer, yet its lone World Cup championship came in 1966. In the second round in 1998, Beckham got red-carded after he, lying on his stomach, purposely kicked Argentina’s Diego Simeone in the calf. England, short-handed, went on to lose, and effigies of Beckham hung from lampposts from Brighton to Newcastle.
In 2002 he was too injured to make a difference, and rumors about a failing marriage, fueled by an alleged affair, didn’t help his mind-set. In the 2004 European Championships quarterfinals he missed a penalty kick – his third straight – in a loss to France. He has scored only three goals in his past 28 international games.
England is one of a handful of teams considered good enough to knock off Brazil in this World Cup tournament. With star striker Wayne Rooney out at least the first two games with a broken foot, Beckham has more pressure to lead. He’s not the kind of player to dominate a game. He has scored only 16 goals in 91 caps.
But tell that to a nation that has sent 100,000 fans to Germany.
“Certain bits of his life infuriate people, including his own teammates,” said Matt Dickinson, who has covered England soccer for The Times of London for seven years. “But he’s hugely driven, as hungry as ever to be a national hero, an icon. He knows he’s 31 now, this is probably his last World Cup, and he needs to deliver.”
As England tries to survive its Group of Death, England’s faithful have, again, forgiven him. They admire how he matured after the 1998 debacle and stood up after his missed penalty kick. England named him captain in 2000.
They wept when he left famed Manchester United for Real Madrid three years ago. Then this season they marveled at how he was its best player on a team featuring Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane, both former world players of the year, through Real Madrid’s worst season in 53 years.
They were reminded why he is paid so much when he had two brilliant assists, and a third bounced off the crossbar in a 3-0 friendly win over Hungary. After all, no one bends it like Beckham.
Bodyguards, famous friends
A man has sat in a car outside the Beckhams’ home in Madrid for three years. Paparazzi are known to have children run up to him in the middle of the street, knowing he always stops for kids – at least long enough to sneak a picture.
“They follow your kids. They follow your family. They follow your wife,” Beckham said. “To me, it’s taking it a step too far. He sits there for three years, and without a camera he’s a stalker. But because they’ve got a camera, they’re fine.”
Beckham was talking during a recent documentary on the recent BBC documentary, “Beckham: A Footballer’s Life.” He was shown walking into a favorite Madrid restaurant and getting a standing ovation from the staff and patrons. He left out the back door. The next day, a picture of him sitting at the table jumped off the front page.
An off-the-cuff admission that he has a mild case of obsessive-compulsive disorder – he puts everything in pairs, and if an odd number of soda cans are in the refrigerator he puts one in a cupboard – turned into daily exposés of England’s suddenly weird star.
His wife, former Spice Girls star Victoria Adams, and three sons, Brooklyn, 7, Romeo, 3, and Cruz, 1, never go anywhere without bodyguards. Two kidnap threats moved Beckham to station a police car in front of the family’s home. He told the boys it was for entertainment before they would go to bed, wearing their dad’s jersey.
“It’s impossible to trust people for me,” Beckham said. “And I don’t like being that because I’m not that sort of person. That’s the tough part because we could be suing people every week, every day. There’s a different story that’s not true.”
But there are plenty that are. That’s why he earns $24 million in endorsements. His new Spanish mansion’s garage looks like the valet lot at the Oscars. Besides the three Ferraris, there is the Lamborghini and a Hummer, all with personalized wheels.
He wears sneakers once and gives them away. He recently hosted a pre-World Cup bash for charity at his English mansion in Hertfordshire that put him back nearly $1 million. Listed in his black book are the numbers of Elton John, Tom Cruise, George Michael and Elizabeth Hurley.
Then there are the haircuts, ranging from the Agassi-ish shoulder-length mop to the buzzcut – and the tattoos, including one on his neck.
“It’s not for everyone else,” he said. “When I do decide to do something, it doesn’t matter what anyone says about that, whether they like it or not. I do it. That’s the way it is.”
Well, not exactly. The mohawk he wore in 2001 didn’t go over well at home. When Victoria saw it, David wasn’t the biggest Beckham in his castle.
He was spotted in the Wembley Stadium toilet, shaving it off.
It all makes for titillating copy – not to mention huge pictures – but it doesn’t always sit well with stodgy soccer officials who go by “Sir.” Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United coach so successful he received knighthood, felt Beckham had too many distractions.
In one infamous flare-up, a berserk Ferguson responded in the locker room after a loss to Arsenal by kicking a soccer boot, accidentally clocking Beckham in the face, instantly causing a million English schoolgirls to cry in horror.
“Ferguson hated the celebrity culture,” Dickinson said. “It was simply him hating flashy haircuts and fast cars. Beckham has a lot of flashy haircuts and fast cars. Beckham wouldn’t change his lifestyle, and it became inevitable one had to leave.”
The night Beckham heard Man U had sold him to Real Madrid, he went back to his palace and wept.
Soccer academies a success
Beckham had reason to cry that night. He has bled Manchester red since his father, Ted, a pipe fitter, passed down his love for Man U as a child. It didn’t matter that they lived in Leytonstone, a blue-collar neighborhood in East London. David attended a soccer camp run by Bobby Charlton, a hero for Manchester United and England, at age 11 and won the skills contest.
He was remarkably good at crossing passes. His father gave him 50 pence (about $1) every time he hit a crossbar, and today with Real Madrid he still practices 20 to 30 crossing passes a day.
“It’s like being a golfer,” he said. “As soon as you hit the sweet spot, you know.”
Beckham is sounding like a coach in his advanced age. His soccer academies in London and Carson, Calif., have become huge hits. The David Beckham Soccer Academy in London is a visual marvel and public relations coup for a player who put his money where his mouth is about his love for children.
“This country is fascinated with celebrity and has been for some time,” said Tom Watt, who co-wrote Beckham’s biography, “My Side,” in 2004. “But with David there is something very solid there underneath it all.”
Located in the south London neighborhood of Greenwich, the academy’s two huge, white indoor soccer fields dwarf Greenwich’s famed Millennium Dome 200 yards away. Inside, past a picture of an 11-year-old Beckham leaping over his teammates with the Ridgeway Rovers, is one of soccer’s great memorabilia walls.
There’s the Beckham shirt from his free-kick goal against Greece that sent England to the 2002 World Cup. There are his boots from the goal he scored from past the halfway line at Wimbledon. Signed jerseys by Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry and Zidane, and Beckham’s jersey from his 50th match as England captain.
But the academy, which opened in November, has medical facilities, classrooms with teaching modules and an emphasis on nutrition. Sorry, kids. No burgers or fries. How about pasta and veggies?
Under the two polyurethane roofs are plush artificial-turf fields, complete with mock crowds painted on the side. An estimated 15,000 kids are expected to come through in 2006, 10,000 of them attending for free through school programs and local community projects. Beckham already has visited eight times.
He wanted to make one point clear. Unlike club academies, this is not for the naturally gifted. It’s for kids like Beckham was.
“That’s one thing that was so important to me,” Beckham said. “Yeah, if we find players who go on to become England players and professional players, then amazing. But the most important thing is for kids to come down and have fun.”
He wants academies in Asia and more in the U.S. Along with his volunteer work for UNICEF, that should keep him busy in retirement. When that is will be the post-World Cup debate in England. He wants Bobby Moore’s England cap record of 108, but those close to Beckham say he’s fit enough to make South Africa for the 2010 Cup.
He has said he would like to play some day in the U.S., but that was before his banner year with Real Madrid. The family even has hinted about staying after retirement. Beckham is trying to learn Spanish.
“I’m not so sure we would (return) now,” Victoria said in the documentary. “No one is more surprised I’m saying this than me. But I don’t want to go back right now. We have our house. We have a nice set of friends. The kids are happy.”
Give them time. It’s early. England has two games left in group play. Its hopes have not left Beckham’s shoulders. And the photographer has not left the front of his house.
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
