The David Beckham documentary on Netflix reignited interest in the former England captain. But after a career at Manchester United and Real Madrid, in which he won almost every major club honour he could win, the question still remains about whether or not he deserves to be remembered amongst football's greatest players. FourFourTwo's Adam Clery takes a look at the player he was... and the player he could have been.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00right so first and foremost if you just have never seen david beckham play because maybe you
00:05weren't old enough or maybe you're not even into football you just watched the documentary and this
00:09came on your recommended feed and you thought oh i'll give it a watch this is how david beckham
00:12played football so he first breaks through at manchester united on the right hand side of
00:17midfield as part of that famous golden generation of players that class of 92 and alex ferguson
00:23very very quickly replaces all the old heads in the team all the experienced players with this
00:28crop of young talent they then as i presume most of you know go on the most astonishing run
00:33of domestic and finally european success and what david beckham would do is he would stick to the
00:38right hand side of midfield in this sort of area and use his frankly astonishing crossing ability
00:43to find manchester united strikers in the penalty area now interestingly the role of a winger back
00:50then was to run really fast with the ball their job is to carry the ball down the flank to cross the
00:54ball from these sort of areas but david beckham he didn't really have that skill set he wasn't
01:00blessed with pace it was a major criticism of him at the time so he wouldn't do that instead he would
01:05float around this much deeper area and cross the ball with tremendous whip from here and because he
01:12was so abnormally skilled at curling the ball it meant that by the time it did reach the attackers in
01:18the box it was traveling as if it had come from this sort of area and also something that really
01:24telepathic understanding with his fullback gary neville who would make these overlapping runs for
01:30him to either get into the space to deliver that kind of cross or because he's made that run to take
01:35a defender away from this area to give him the space to do that he played just shy of like 400 games for
01:41manchester united i think and this unbelievable crossing ability he had combined with the fact that
01:46he then took all the corners and the free kick so we could do the same thing from there gave him
01:50something like 120 assists in that time you add those 120 assists to the 85 goals he scored and
01:58over those 400 appearances he was contributing a goal to this team every game and a half and that
02:04is really good that alone puts him in the very very top bracket of footballers and the same was
02:09true for his time playing for england as well he was in largely a similar sort of setup with quite a few
02:14similar sort of players including of course gary neville who would make those same overlapping runs
02:19for him to help create a bit of space for him to do was crossing from this area of the pitch he still
02:24never looked to beat players and get down the line not that he needed to of course 115 appearances
02:29which puts him third i think in the all-time ranking as well as 17 goals and 42 assists that's a goal
02:35contribution just under every two games again that's brilliant but then as you no doubt saw in the
02:41documentary went to madrid didn't he and the thing is this was the early 2000s not like it is now
02:47where every time david beckham did something brilliant on the continent you saw a clip of it
02:51all over social media immediately kind of dropped off most people's radar the only time you could
02:57watch david beckham play for madrid was if you had sky sports and you could be bothered to stay up to
03:02like 8 p.m on a sunday to watch him put crosses in against osasuna and i will circle back to this at
03:07the end of the video but it's worth pointing out that if somebody's one of the biggest celebrities on
03:11the planet off the field and then they go to a place in the world where you no longer can see
03:15him on the field that kind of becomes all anybody really knows in england but while he was in spain
03:22his game evolved massively now as they mentioned in the documentary beckham was never going to play
03:27on the right hand side of midfield for madrid because they already had lewis figo who was good
03:32enough that he was not going to get replaced in that position and while in the documentary they
03:36mentioned that beckham was playing behind figo he was doing so from central midfield they moved him
03:42over here into the middle of the pitch to accommodate all the big stars they had in that team look if
03:50you're not actually into football and you have just clicked on this video because you liked the
03:54documentary you like david beckham or something and you don't know what this team is jesus suffering
04:02like this is the most unbelievable collection of footballers you could ever hope to put on a
04:09pitch they never won anything together because that's not how football works but on paper this
04:14is just mind-boggling like imagine they announce a new boy band tomorrow and it's harry styles
04:19drake timothy charlemais uh the guy from the bear and david beckham be a complete mess wouldn't it but
04:27you'd want to watch it anyway though football david beckham's move to the middle meant that his game
04:31changed it meant he started doing things differently figo was very happy to vacate this space he wasn't
04:36exactly hugging the touchline so that meant that when he did beckham could then drift out into this
04:40side and play those kind of deep crosses he had been playing at manchester united he could still get a
04:45bit of his game in there but when he wasn't able to do that it meant that he was having to play these
04:49passes from a far more central position often from a far deeper position than he was ever used to doing
04:55it and all of a sudden he started developing this almost andrea perlow like ability to sit deep
05:00and find players either out on the flanks into the space or to hit the target players directly with
05:06over the top or direct through balls now he was really really good at that aspect of the game but
05:10because he'd never really played centrally before this and he was largely partnered by guti in the
05:15middle it meant that this was a very soft area for real madrid it meant they struggled to really
05:21control games and i'm not lumping the blame for this at beckham's feet the problem was the team as a
05:25whole but the reason this never succeeded was because it lacked a lot of the steel and the guile
05:30required to go on and win titles having beckham and guti and occasionally cambiasso or one or two
05:35others in the middle just didn't have that requisite toughness but the other side of his game actually
05:41playing there getting the ball and doing things with it beckham was a complete revelation it looked
05:47like he should have been playing in that role his entire career and the thing is he was so good at
05:51doing that as this project collapsed around real madrid and they realized oh yeah you actually need
05:56to build a cohesive team not just go out and buy the best 11 players you can he was the only galactico
06:02the only big big star of this crop that remained in the side by the time they did bother getting
06:07around to win the league in beckham's last season he was now playing in this kind of 4-3-3 setup on the
06:12right hand side of a midfield three so he was free to drift out into these areas to get on the right
06:17hand side where he liked to do things but primarily he was a central midfielder and of course after that
06:22he went to america and then he went to italy and then he went to france and all sorts but it was
06:27during this point of his career from his breakthrough at man united to the end of his time at madrid that
06:31he was considered one of the best players in the world so was he well in short i have watched a lot
06:40of match footage i have read stuff that was written about him at the time i've read stuff that's been
06:44written about him since i've done honestly i promise you about three days worth of research
06:48into this video and my opinion is thus if anything david beckham is probably grossly
06:55underrated especially in england now look his dead balls his free kicks his corners like all of that
07:01stuff you don't need to discuss those he was the best in the world at doing it at the time and he
07:05still remains now one of the best who has ever done it like the curl the whip the spin he was able to put
07:11on a football it's called bend it like beckham for a reason he was able to do it in open play he was
07:17able to do it from a dead ball he was able to do it when he was running at pace it's just you cannot
07:21take the stance that he wasn't brilliant at delivering a football but to say that's all he
07:27did to say that was the only tool he had in his box oh is just so so wrong for a start he was an
07:36athlete so far beyond the standards of the time that were you to just transplant him into today's
07:42football he would still be one of if not the most athletic players in it and if you don't think that's
07:48an absolutely staggering factor by the way here's a graph that exists on the internet that you can go
07:53and look at co-produced by the university of stafford and sunderland that shows how the premier
07:58league has changed in terms of its physical requirements over this is about a six-year period in
08:05terms of the distance the players cover how often they sprint how intense their sprints are how far
08:10their sprints are every single year it gets harder and harder and harder to be an athlete in that sport
08:16and this is 2006 to about 2013 right to extrapolate that line back to the 90s where beckham was playing
08:22and extrapolate it forward to where we are now the disparity will be absolutely enormous and yet and
08:28this is the best stat i've ever done in a 442 video by the way two seasons ago because the last time
08:33they published this numbers the player in the premier league who covered the most distance in
08:37one individual game was leandro dendonga he ran 13.2 kilometers playing four wolves and yet in 2001 so
08:4622 years ago david beckham's average distance covered in a premier league game across the entire season
08:54was 14.1 kilometers if you were to somehow pluck david beckham out of that era and put him in today's
09:02premier league the average distance he would run not the top not max the average distance he would run
09:10would be the most anyone had run in the premier league that entire season he would do that every
09:16single week in that infamous performance against greece you know he scores the free kick right at the end
09:22and he basically decided he had to play greece on his own he ran 16.1 kilometers you see pretty much
09:30anywhere in europe bar great britain right if a player like david beckham had emerged with his
09:35athleticism and his commitment and his range of passing ability he would have been immediately
09:40played in central midfield but the english game in the 90s and this isn't a criticism by the way
09:46football is just different wherever you go and whenever you go there meant that he wasn't really
09:50the kind of template you want for a central midfielder he wasn't robust enough he wasn't tough
09:55enough in the tackle he didn't really drive with the ball well enough so instead he gets played out
09:59on the right hand side where on the one hand he can still use his delivery to feed the two center
10:04forwards he can contribute in that way and other teams can't target his sort of perceived physical
10:09weaknesses but he also can't really control games of football he can't dictate their tempo he can't be
10:15the the pace setter he can't be seen to have a great footballing brain like i might catch hell for
10:20this but in terms of what they can physically do and how they like to do it there's very little difference
10:25between andrea pierlo and david beckham if anything beckham's got way better athleticism
10:30than he did but beckham never played in the central midfield he never started as a 10
10:34and worked his way back there are very few games where you can see david beckham controlling
10:39everything where it all goes through him and he's spraying passes around you never saw it except
10:44you did in the champions league final roy keen was suspended and unsure what to do
10:49alex ferguson decided to put david beckham in central midfield move ryan giggs to the right and
10:54play yes for blongfist i think that's how you say it over on the left and that game is available
10:58in its 90 plus 3 minute entirety and honestly go and watch it and just watch david beckham he's
11:05playing in central midfield he floats around deep in front of the back four he receives the ball
11:09buying it trying to man mark him but his knowledge of space and his ability to find it is really
11:14really good and he keeps getting on the ball and playing some of the best passes you have ever
11:19seen that game is pretty much david beckham being andrea pierlo before anybody really knew what
11:24being andrea pierlo meant and that's without even factoring in that both of manchester united's goals
11:30came from david beckham corners like and of course then when he moved to spain it was pretty obvious
11:35that's where he should play so madrid had no problem sticking him in central midfield even when
11:39figo left they didn't move him back out to the right he stayed there there's a great highlights
11:43package that for some reason someone has put on youtube of david beckham playing as a central
11:47midfielder in one game and you can see in it that as he's had more time to learn the role he isn't
11:51just spraying out these great passes everywhere finding the flanks finding the center forwards
11:55but he's also becoming more dogged and determined in the central midfield his recovery runs are better
11:59you can see learning all the other sides of the game that stopped him getting put there in the
12:04first place so come on then adam if you're so clever and david beckham was supposedly this
12:08absolutely brilliant player who was slightly misunderstood in his own country but was seen as a brilliant sort of
12:14central midfielder on the continent why why then why isn't he so highly rated well like i said at the
12:19start it was the early 2000s what manchester united loved to do with david beckham on this side was
12:26effectively have him get the ball anywhere in the pitch and try and hit the two forwards and even if
12:30that didn't work you had players like roy keen and nicky bought and ryan giggs whoever else they would
12:35effectively crash that situation if it was cleared getting a rebound man united love to have beckham
12:41just stick it in the mixer at fair play it was a really really effective strategy so they did it
12:45a lot they would constantly win the ball back and immediately recirculated to beckham who would do
12:50the same thing over and over and over so all football fans in england ever really saw him do
12:55was a score eye-catching free kicks and take eye-catching set pieces and b do the same thing
13:01delivering the ball from the right hand side over and over and over he looked like a one-trick pony
13:07because he was but he looked so damn good being a one-trick pony and several of those one-trick
13:12pony moments became so iconic within the sport that he became this global celebrity became brand
13:18beckham he married a spice girl he outgrew the sport itself so then when he moved to spain he
13:23has this footballing rebirth as a central midfielder who can control the game who can show how good a
13:28footballing brain he's got nobody can see that because it's not on telly anymore you're not going
13:34to a game once a season to see man united play and watching beckham in the flesh you only see him
13:39when he's playing for england where lo and behold he's still on the right hand side putting those
13:44balls in being a one-trick pony and of course because he had outgrown football itself he's still
13:49here about him he's still in the news he's still in all the papers he doesn't go away he just exists
13:54to you purely as a celebrity as the guy who married the spice girl as the guy who's got the modeling
14:00contract you're not seeing what he's doing in his day job you're just remembering what the one thing
14:05he was doing in england was and then seeing him as a celebrity so long story short some english
14:10football fans think david beckham was a one-trick pony because they only ever saw him do one trick
14:15like that you know a little one where they put the leg up and they sort of hop to the side they only
14:19ever saw him do that when he went to spain and he was balancing on a beach ball and juggling and he's
14:24got the flaming thing on the end of his nose they never got to see that because it wasn't on telly
14:29wasn't it wasn't in the stadiums for them so nobody's fault just just is and if you're a bit
14:34skeptical about all this or you would just like to learn more then honestly that champions league
14:38final is available for free on uefa's website just just go and watch it look at any highlights
14:43package of him playing for madrid in the last couple of years go watch extended footage so you
14:48can see him doing all the non-spectacular stuff like i've had i've had a great old week watching
14:52all of this and if you are sitting there thinking well i would like to learn more adam but
14:55specifically only from you not anybody else ever they all terrify me then hey subscribe to 442 this
15:02is what i do this is my job i'm here every single day talking about stuff and you can tweet me or
15:06x me or whatever it is at adam cleary c-l-e-r-y tell me what i should do a video on because
15:11it's slim pickings during an international break and that beckham documentaries really
15:17helped me out get 442 on all the socials it's in the corner of the video by the latest issue of the
15:21magazine deckman rice on the cover he's handsome isn't he but until next time i have been adam
15:26cleary this has been david beckham and you can sort of see it i think although he's ginger and i'll see
15:32you soon goodbye
15:33you