David Beckham named former Manchester United teammate Gary Neville in his dream five-a-side team alongside Real Madrid legends Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo.
The former England international brought out some of his former teammates Beckham; the four-part docuseries chronicling his “rapid rise from humble beginnings to global football stardom”.
In one of the episodes, Becks gave viewers an insight into a private football pitch on two hectares of land adjacent to their barn conversion in the Cotswolds.
The 49-year-old goes on to say that his son, Romeo, wanted to take him on in a five-on-five game, which turned the conversation to his dream team.
When asked how many times he still kicks a ball, Beckham said: “Romeo comes here all the time. He wants a match between my friends and his friends. He said, ‘Who would you invite?'”.
Beckham then named Gary Neville, Roberto Carlos, Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo Nazario as those he would pick to face Romeo’s team.
“I said, ‘Well, maybe I’d get Gary [Neville] round. And he said ‘Okay’. Then I said, ‘Well, I could probably get Roberto Carlos to come over, and maybe Ronaldo would switch. Maybe [Luis] Figo maybe [Zinedine] Zidane].’ And he said, ‘Well, that’s not fair! Why would you do that?’.
“I’d say, ‘Because I’m going to win. We’re going to win!’ I won’t let his friends beat us!'”
Figo, who appeared in the Netflix docuseries alongside some of his former Real Madrid teammates, was then told about Beckham’s comments. He replied, “To his children? I would kill them! The children!”
Image credit: Getty
Beckham was full of praise for Zinedine Zidane earlier this year. “Not only is he one of the best players I’ve ever played with, one of the toughest managers, and just plain cool,” Beckham said in Rio. Ferdinand presents podcast,
“He’s just cool, you know, without trying. If you play him a ball, anywhere on the field, at any height, at any level, at any speed, he brings the ball down like it’s just is one of those things he does.
“People literally came to the Bernabeu to see how controllable he was. Because it was like watching a ballerina, the way he plays is so elegant. Everything about him, he is elegant.”
Beckham reminisced about one of his first training sessions with Ronaldo Nazario.
“I think when you see Ronnie play back in the day, I mean he’s exciting at every level,” he said.
“One of our first training sessions was in Korea, I think, or China, I’m not sure where we were at the time. And the ball had just been played to him and all he had to do was put it into the Goal And as it’s being played to him I’m trying to defend it.
“So I slid across and as I slid across I thought he was just going to play the ball into the goal the first time, and as I slid across he just put his foot on the ball, and as I’m sliding by he just looks at me with the biggest smile on his face and he just taps it and I’m like, oh god, wow!