There has been much adulation of David Beckham in the media following his retirement from football. While Beckham is a hugely successful celebrity, it never seemed that his footballing ability equalled the talent he had for becoming and remaining very famous.
‘Brand Beckham’ shows no sign of flagging post-retirement. Why would it? As PR and brand consultant Mark Borkowski said after the announcement, “It’s not about how successful he is on the pitch and it hasn’t been for some time.”
His celebrity-footballer predecessor George Best once said, “He cannot kick with his left foot, he cannot head a ball, he cannot tackle and he doesn’t score many goals. Apart from that, he’s alright.”
To be fair to Beckham, he never claimed he was the most talented in the world – in interviews he usually emphasised his commitment and work ethic. In the Mail on Sunday, Gary Neville wrote that when he asked Beckham how he wanted to be remembered, his reply was, “As a hard-working footballer.”
However, while his contemporaries such as Thierry Henry, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo were renowned for their sheer talent on the pitch, football was just another factor that made Beckham the ultimate marketable product. Football was his USP, but it’s by no means what made him the global star he is.
During Beckham’s footballing career, he modelled for countless brands including Armani, Adidas, Pepsi, Gillette, H&M and Police sunglasses. The endorsements show no sign of stopping. It’s no wonder he was sure to “thank Simon Fuller and his team for their continued support” in his retirement statement.
He’s the ideal poster boy, with an affable personality, a nice face and a photogenic family. He also seems obliging when it comes to being marketed in any way that will cement the success of the brand, from his ever changing haircuts to his red-carpet appearances.
Beckham started his career as a promising young player in Alex Ferguson’s league-dominating Manchester United side. It was during this time that he won most of his footballing silverware. However, he was always overshadowed in his attacking ability by Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs.
Scholes also retired last week, but to comparatively little fanfare from the media. Scholes made more club appearances than Beckham – 718 compared to 671. He also won more trophies – 19 compared to Beckham’s 14. The PSG fans gave Beckham a good send-off following his 14 appearances for them, but I doubt he’ll remain in their memory the way Scholes will for the Manchester United fans.
At Real Madrid, Beckham was a huge commercial success. He’s credited with increasing their revenue by £56million during his four years there, helping them climb to the top of football’s rich list and break into the Far East market through sales of merchandise bearing his name. On the pitch, after a three-year dry spell, Real won La Liga in 2007. Beckham started just 14 league matches that season and moved to LA Galaxy that summer.
His move to LA seemed the perfect way to maintain his professional footballer status while allowing ‘Brand Beckham’ to break America. But it signalled the end of his career as a serious footballer. He tried to offset his exile in the States with loan spells at AC Milan, but upon returning to LA, the Galaxy fans jeered him, feeling he was using their team to propel his own fame rather than help them win trophies.
With Manchester United and Real Madrid, Beckham was part of already-successful teams. When it was up to him, his limitations became apparent. It was his England career that revealed these shortcomings. The FA and Sven Goran Eriksson seemed enthralled by his superstardom, allowing his celebrity to pervade the team at the expense of any serious challenge for trophies.
He was England captain for two World Cup final campaigns. In 2002, England crashed out to Brazil when Beckham ducked out of a tackle that led to the winning goal. He was at the peak of his fame by that time and avoided another 1998 debacle because David Seaman bore the brunt of the blame for not preventing the goal. By 2006, Beckham was past his best and limped off the pitch injured as England lost to Portugal in the quarter finals.
Football may be his first love, but ‘Brand Beckham’ superseded ‘David Beckham the footballer’ long ago. There’s no doubt he’s a world class celebrity; whether his footballing ability ever lived up to that is another matter.
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He was a great player…not the greatest, but a truly great player.
And it certainly wasn’t down to him that England never won anything, if you’re looking for those to blame then look no further than those galloping, brainless ones like Rooney and Gerrard.
You could never doubt those two’s physical commitment or their ability to pull of an amazing pass once in a while, score a brilliant goal, but ask them to pass the ball five yards to a member of their own team and they just couldn’t do it more than about 40% of the time. Beckham and Carrick have been the most consistent passers in England’s history but one never played and the other was pushed out wide where his lack of pace cost him dearly.
Beckham was never an outstanding footballer in the shape of Messi, Ronaldo, zidane and all these great stars but he had three footballing attributes on which he built his career.
1. He was an excellent passer.
2. He was a very top pin point crosser.
3. He was an outstanding free kick taker.
The above qualities have one thing in common and that’s creating goals. Isn’t this what football is all about ? If on top of that he had the dribbling ability of Giggs then he would have been the greatest player ever. He didn’t and was not either !! His commercial value was the cherry on the cake.
He is not Messi or CR7 or Zedine but he is a pretty good footballer. However, what he did for football (and likely continue to do) is to promote the game and he did more for the game as a whole than Messi, CR7 or any football greats. Sometime its not the skills that count but setting a role model for our youth is more important. Suarez has tremendous skills but a football scum, who would you choose as a role model for your kids.
I think because of his celebrity people forget the player he was in his mid twenties, he was good at football first and famous after, but we must remember that he was twice 2nd in the fifa player of the year awards, and also during 99 when united won the treble he was the player of the season that year, and I recently watched the video of that season and he set up probably more than half of United’s goals, he was amazing that season.
In although I agree he was not on the level of Messi, Ronaldo, and Zidane, but certainly the next step down and probably the best England player in the last 20 years of so. During his time with England everything came through him and I have not seen the stats but he is probably far and away top in the assists table for England.
The truth is so cleansing.