David Beckham - Earning machine and a ball wizard!

David Beckham was born on 2nd May 1975 at Whipps Cross Hospital lived as a young boy in a terraced house in nearby Leytonstone. He is a creative midfielder who is fast earning himself a reputation for scoring spectacular goals. When you see David play you can't help but be impressed by the accuracy and vision of his passing. He has many more other strength to his game. He is hard working, strikes the ball cleanly and with great power, has a wonderful technique and is deadly with free kicks.He played most of his career for Manchester United F.C. and is currently captain of the English national football team.

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. 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, 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.

Beckham first signed a trainee's contract with United in 1991, and made his League debut in 1995, aged 19. The next year he helped the side to the Premiership and FA Cup trophies and to their dominance of domestic football. In the 1998-99 season, he was part of the United team that won the "treble" - Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League. In total, Beckham scored 86 goals in 397 games for Man United. However, 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). Apart from benefitting 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. 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 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.

By 1998 he was a regular international, and travelled with the England squad to the FIFA World Cup. In the quarter-final 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 but much merely gratuitous. He received a similar vilification following his dismissal for a dangerous challenge in the World Club Championship 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 an unprecedented 5-1 defeat of Germany in Munich. 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. He was considered by some Manchester United fans to be too interested in playing for England, to the detriment of his performances for United. (The above information might have undergone some changes as the statistical data changes every year for the player like Beckham!)