Real Madrid: Analyzing the complex legacy of David Beckham at the Bernabeu

First LaLiga title and Real Madrid exit

After Perez’s resignation, Ramon Calderon became the next Real Madrid president. Fabio Capello came as the head coach and found a better alternative to Beckham in the speedier Jose Antonio Reyes. The club hierarchy deemed him surplus to requirement and wasn’t planning on a renewal. Real Madrid’s sporting director Predrag Mijatović announced that Beckham would not remain at the club after the end of the season. However, he later claimed that he was mistranslated and that he actually said that Beckham’s contract had not yet been renewed.

Beckham however responded with a shocking end-of-season move to the Major League Soccer outfit, LA Galaxy. Capello wasn’t happy with him and publicly announced that he wouldn’t be playing for Madrid ever again.

"Calderón responded by saying that Beckham is “going to Hollywood to be half a film star”, adding “our technical staff were right not to extend his contract, which has been proved by the fact that no other technical staff in the world wanted him except Los Angeles”."

Instead, his hard work and talent saw Beckham reintegrated into the side and he played a crucial role in the club’s successful running and ultimately, the Spanish League crown. The club was so impressed that the management tried to undo his transfer to the United States but was unsuccessful and he would join MLS, a retirement league when he joined it. He would then go on to be one of its first biggest stars and today MLS is a decent destination for Latin American talents for further development.

David Beckham’s legacy is the kind of anecdote which vindicates the Galacticos project, but unfairly colors Beckham’s sporting reputation. Financial results from time to time show Real Madrid’s revenues rising. The club reached the top of Deloitte’s money list by 2005 and that depicts Beckham quite wrongly as a convenience signing made solely with commercial interests in mind.

That becomes especially true because he would only win two pieces of silverware in his time in Spain. But that’s really to misunderstand David Beckham or to misunderstand the rare balance that he struck between the sporting and commercial worlds. It’s also to misinterpret what the Galacticos project was, or why Beckham was so integral to it. His time with Real Madrid may have not been laden with silverware but it still produced a financial revolution, as well as the spectacle and sense of fantasy Florentino Perez dreamt of restoring.

But as it is, we would remember Perez’s initial approach as a wrong move. In the fantasy obsession, he rejected the fundamentals of team building. He did manage to sign the best players but in the process made his squad worse. David Beckham’s signing remains the pinnacle of it. In absence of Makelele, the Galacticos couldn’t express themselves knowing they’d lack cover for a move gone wrong.

Even the 2006-07 title came after the signing of Sergio Ramos, who was often called the first Spanish Galactico was more of a logical signing to help Madrid’s problems in defense, rather than being just another talent that the club had to acquire by hook or by crook.