David Beckham, the football icon, has revealed the enduring agony he thought he caused his family following his red card at the 1998 World Cup, saying his ejection left him a “mess.”
This was revealed in a new Netflix documentary series named “Beckham,” which is slated to premiere on Wednesday, October 4, and features the ex-Manchester United, PSG, and Real Madrid midfielder reflecting on his career.
Beckham, now 48 and co-owner of MLS franchise Inter Miami, was sent off during a World Cup last-16 match against Argentina for kicking the back of Diego Simeone’s thigh.
England went on to lose the match on penalties, and Beckham was largely blamed for the setback, with opposition fans continually jeering him when he played for Manchester United the following season.
In the documentary, his wife, Victoria Beckham, stated that the continuing abuse left her husband “absolutely clinically depressed” as he tried to deal with the effects while becoming a parent for the first time in March 1999.
Beckham admitted the abuse “took a toll on me that I never knew myself”.
He said: “I wish there was a pill you could take which could erase certain memories. I made a stupid mistake. It changed my life.
“We were in America (on holiday after the World Cup), just about to have our first baby, and I thought, ‘we will be fine. In a day or two people will have forgotten’.”
“I don’t think I have ever talked about it, just because I can’t. I find it hard to talk through what I went through because it was so extreme.
“Wherever I went, I got abused every single day — to walk down the street and to see people look at you in a certain way, spit at you, abuse you, come up to your face and say some of the things they said, that is difficult.
“I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping. I was a mess. I didn’t know what to do.”
“It brought a lot of attention that I would never wish on anyone, let alone my parents, and I can’t forgive myself for that.
“That is the tough part of what happened, because I was the one that made the mistake.
“It is only now that I am 47 years old, it is now that I beat myself up about it (still).”
Beckham’s wife also received abuse while attending football matches to support her husband.
“As horrible as it was to look up to Victoria in the stand (getting that abuse), it was the one thing which spurred me on,” he said.
The 1998/99 season, however, saw a United team coached by Alex Ferguson win a miraculous triple of the Premier League, FA Cup, and Champions League, with the European success clinched by two stunning goals in stoppage time against Bayern Munich.
Former Manchester United and England teammate Gary Neville, who is one of the documentary’s creators, recalls how the pair were “absolutely destroying teams” down the right side for United.
Neville said: I was supporting him in a way which was to be fair, I would say I was a side dish really. Not the beef. I was the mustard on the side.”