Record sales
The summer of 2003 was a turning point in the recent history of Real Madrid. To begin with, Florentino Perez got rid of Vicente Del Bosque, and then did not interfere with the departure of Claude Makelele, which doomed the club to many years of searching for a head coach and support midfielder adequate to the royal ambitions. These searches, as we see, did not stop under the new president - Ramon Calderone.
... And that summer, David Beckham moved to Santiago Bernabéu. Its transfer value (35 million euros) began to return to Madrid, as soon as T-shirts with the 23rd number went on sale. 624,000 euros only in the first day! Perez rubbed his hands pretty. Moreover, his stellar ensemble had a touring tour of Southeast Asia, promising record box office. Life seemed Florentino beautiful and did not have at all thoughts on how to squeeze into the composition of the two best right-wing midfielders of the world at that time - Figo and Beckham. This task was placed on the shoulders of Carlos Kearush, who had seen the first football footsteps of Luis and who was very familiar with David on Manchester United.
Since then, with the exception of the 2003 Spanish Super Cup, Real Madrid won no trophies ...
Program crash
If Zidane, Figo and Ronaldo replenished not only the treasury of the Club of Madrid, but also a collection of its titles, then Beckham successfully coped only with the first mission. In the role of the reference midfielder, whom he was initially assigned to, David simply could not strengthen the game of the “galacticos”. Not to mention making up for the loss of Makelele. Nobody demanded this from him.
Bex's slurred debut in Spain marked the first glitch in Florentino Perez's program. The pavons were not so talented and numerous to make the team equal in proportion with the Zidans. And the number of world stars has ceased to turn into quality.
David is three years younger than Figo and Zidane. And at some point it even seemed that the president of Real Madrid intended to build the team’s game around him. Having forgotten about his transfer principles, in the summer of 2004 Perez makes Beckham two of his compatriots Jonathan Woodgate and Michael Owen, adding to them six months later Thomas Gravesen, who played five seasons in England. Perez’s calculation did not materialize: Beckham, although more often than before, appeared on the usual right flank, and he did not become a determining player for Real Madrid. And was it really possible to assume leadership functions in a team that was shaken in less than a year by three coaching changes? After all, Camacho, and Caro, and Lushemburgu differently imagined the role of Becks.
The culprit or the victim?
At the end of that nightmarish season, Real Madrid left Luis Figo. Beckham for a while could forget about the game in the supporting zone. Wanderlei Lushemburgu he began to be considered solely as a right attacking midfielder. However, the age of the Brazilian coach in the royal club was also short-lived. And Juan Ramon Lopez Caro, who succeeded him, started experiments and again transferred David to the center. This time, the Englishman was located just to the right of the defensive midfielder, and his signature awnings and backache were again unclaimed.
With the advent of Capello, Beckham faced another problem, unprecedented before. Don Fabio saw on the right flank of midfield anyone - Reyes, Robinho, Raul, but not David. Over the past ten years, Becks has become accustomed to being the main player in the team, be it the national team, Manchester United or Real Madrid. Once on the bench, David was completely lost. I had to forget about past leadership ambitions.
What happened was about to happen. David was not needed by the Madrid club. Four seasons spent by him in this team will go down in the history of Real Madrid as one of the most unsuccessful segments.
Was Beckham the culprit, or, conversely, the victim of a failed period? Perhaps the 23rd number of Madrid turned out to be both. Although not of his own free will, he introduced disharmony into the composition, having failed to cope with the functions that were assigned to him. On the other hand, Beckham came to Real 28-year-old. The years spent in Madrid could be the heyday of his career. Alas, playing in an unusual place for him, David did not bring the team even half of what he could ...
BEKHAM IN REAL
2003/04
44 games, 6 goals, 12 assists
2004/05
37 games, 4 goals, 5 assists
2005/06
47 games, 6 goals, 16 assists
2006/07
18 games, 2 goals, 1 assists