Beckham makes most of his global influence
The white sport utility vehicle moved down a tarred road in Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone, when a group of men and youths, about seven or eight in all, ran up alongside the vehicle and started slapping at the roof and windows, trying to attract attention.
Inside, David Beckham smiled. Even here, in one of Africa’s most benighted and impoverished countries, a land still reeling from a 10-year civil war that left 50,000 dead, the Galaxy and England soccer star could not go unrecognized.
A little farther down the road, Beckham asked the driver to stop.
Another group of men, a ragtag bunch wearing a rainbow of colors and costumes, were playing a soccer game on a dusty patch of roadside scrubland. Many of the players were bare-chested. Some were barefoot. The goals were makeshift. But the game was still soccer and Beckham wanted to join in.
For a while he did and a crowd gathered. Could one of the world’s most recognizable athletes really be here, playing a pickup game with their friends and relatives? He was. Before leaving, Beckham stripped off his black UNICEF T-shirt and gave it to one of the players.
Since November, the Beckham world tour has taken him from Los Angeles to Vancouver, Sydney, Wellington, London, Freetown, Sao Paulo, Honolulu, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Dallas, New York and now Paris.
Today, Beckham is in Paris, where he is expected to play for England and earn his 100th cap in its friendly international match against France. On Thursday he will fly back to Los Angeles, and on Friday he and the rest of the Galaxy will fly to Denver for Saturday’s Major League Soccer season opener against the Colorado Rapids.
Cynics would argue that Beckham’s off-season tour is how it is with celebrities. They make a short trip into the Third World, put on a quick show of humanity for the cameras and then head home to Beverly Hills or wherever.
But Beckham said he felt genuine concern, particularly in Sierra Leone, when he gazed down at the tiny and half-starved infant cradled in his tattooed arms at a local malnutrition center, when he played with a toddler being weighed in a sling-like contraption and when he was shown around a malaria treatment center.
It was only a few days that Beckham spent in Sierra Leone as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in January, but it left its mark.
“That was one of the most rewarding trips I’ve ever done in my life,” Beckham said in an interview last week. “It was a lot more satisfying than anything else. Obviously, there’s a lot of devastation, but there’s a lot of good work that is happening. I came away not happy but satisfied with everything that I’d seen that was going on.
“It was hard to see the malnutrition center and different children along the way and different families along the way, but it was great to see the great work that UNICEF is doing.”
Beckham has made such journeys before, and they offer the ultimate contrast to other, more glamorous and glitzy trips he has taken during the MLS off-season.
And travel he has.
In the last five months, Beckham visited almost every continent. He has been to North America, to Europe, to Africa, to South America, to Australia, to Asia. He somehow managed to miss Antarctica.
“There’s still time,” he joked. “I was cold enough in New York last night, so I’m not sure I want to go to there.”
The “last night” came last week when he was in New York at a swank black-tie affair with Pele. Sharp contrast to Sierra Leone, where most have to get by on a dollar a day and disease and hunger cause one out of four children to die before their fifth birthday.
It has been a frenetic five months for Beckham, part of it helping the Galaxy go global by playing exhibitions, part of it furthering the Beckham brand, and part of it humanitarian.
The soccer side of things drew mixed reviews. The Galaxy played in front of more than 80,000 in Sydney but only 10,000 in Shanghai. Australia was also where, in a sponsor-driven event, Beckham had the chance to compare his kicking game to that of some rugby league and Australian Rules football stars.
“I quite enjoyed that,” he said. “To be able to kick one soccer ball, one rugby ball, one Australian Rules football right next to the Opera House and looking out at the Sydney Harbor Bridge. I got some great pictures from that.”
In Brazil, Beckham helped launch a sports-themed luxury resort that will include his third academy, the David Beckham World of Sport, with a 10,000-seat stadium and eight soccer fields in the coastal resort of Natal, one of the cities that hopes to stage World Cup matches in 2014.
Does Brazil, a five-time world champion, really need help with soccer?
“One of the questions to me was, ‘Aren’t you a bit arrogant coming out to Brazil and trying to teach Brazilians football?’ ” Beckham said. “Of course, my answer was, ‘I’m not here to teach the Brazilian kids football, because I don’t need to. I’m here to give them a safe place and a safe environment to enjoy playing soccer.’ I think they appreciated that.”
Beckham had been to Asia many times before, as a player with Manchester United, with Real Madrid and with England’s national team. The response this time, with the Galaxy, was much the same, although perhaps on a smaller scale.
“We had a lot of people come to see the games. We got what we wanted out of the tour, which was to work hard and to get some games and some good training sessions. We had fun as well,” Beckham said. “Visiting different countries, that’s one of the great things about being a soccer player, because you are taken to different places where you probably wouldn’t visit.
“As much as you miss your family and you miss your friends while you’re on tour, it’s a great time to get bonded together. Being together for three weeks, we bonded really well.”
Beckham, who turns 33 in May, looks and feels totally different than he did in 2007, when injuries cut short his debut season with the Galaxy and he played in only five MLS games. Tanned, fully fit and as motivated as ever, he is ready for 2008.
“I’ve played 90 minutes in most [exhibition] games,” he said. “I’m a lot healthier than I was when I first arrived here. Preseason seems to have gone on forever. I can’t wait to actually get it started and get that first game underway.”
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