Maybe all the publicity got to us as players. Maybe it got to referees too. For weeks afterwards, it felt like we were having decisions go against us all the time, as if nobody wanted to be accused of favouring us like the guy in charge against Valencia was supposed to have. Players getting sent off or suspended, though, was just part of it. It felt like our luck had taken a turn for the worse and we weren’t playing well enough – or with a settled enough team – to get ourselves out of the rut we were slipping into. Every team has a sticky patch during a season, even when they go on to win things. Last season, though, our sticky patch cost us dear. Without the confidence and the rhythm we’d had before Christmas, we weren’t able to nick the results we needed in the important games. And now, suddenly, the teams behind us in La Liga were beginning to make up the ground.
Looking back, I think we did very well, at around the same time, to beat Bayern Munich over two legs to get through to the Champions League quarter-finals. They had most of the ball in the first game at the Olympic Stadium but, right near the end, Roberto Carlos hit a free-kick that Oliver Kahn couldn’t hold onto and we got away with a draw and the away goal. It was the kind of good fortune we weren’t getting in La Liga. The return game was a fantastic experience. Champions League nights are special at the Bernebeu, playing in the kind of atmosphere that had got me so excited about the place while I was still a United player. There’s an extra edge in the stands. And in the dressing room too. Real Madrid, after all, have always lived and breathed for European football: nobody can touch the history and tradition that’s built up at the club over forty-odd years in the European Cup.
Recently, Bayern have had a pretty good record against us but, that Wednesday night in Madrid, it just felt all along we were going to do what we needed to. Even though Ronaldo was out injured and Roberto Carlos was suspended, I thought we controlled the game from start to finish and could have won by more than just the one goal Zizou scored in the first half to take us through. And, even though we weren’t playing as well as we’d done in the first half of the season, by the middle of March we were still top of La Liga, through to the Champions League quarters and into the final of the Copa Del Rey. Spain was starting to talk seriously about a Real Madrid treble.
Back in 1999, the game I’ve always believed made the impossible possible for United was that amazing FA Cup semi-final replay against Arsenal at Villa Park. Now, in the spring of 2004 at Real, we’d got ourselves into a similar position in all three major competitions. And it was a Cup tie that made the difference again; except what followed this time round was the whole season starting to unravel. Even though they’d got a draw against us in La Liga a few days before, we were definitely favourites to beat Real Zaragoza at the Bernebeu in the final of the Copa Del Rey and we started really well. I scored from a free-kick early on and hit the post with another. Instead of folding, though, Zaragoza came back strong. I wonder if they’ve ever played quite as well as they did that night. By half-time, they were leading 2–1 and deserved to be.
A couple of minutes into the second half, Roberto Carlos whacked in a free-kick for 2–2 and then Zaragoza had a man sent off. I’m sure everybody in the ground was convinced we’d go on and win the game. But, just like United had against Arsenal that night at Villa Park, Zaragoza dug in. They worked and worked at stopping us scoring. Once we got into extra-time, I’m sure they’d have settled for penalties but we had Guti sent off to make it even numbers and, about ten minutes from time, Galetti scored what turned out to be their winner from the edge of the box. That kind of blow, after 110 minutes of football, would knock any team. We piled forward looking for another equaliser but it didn’t come. Every cup competition loves an underdog and you couldn’t say Zaragoza weren’t worth the win. That didn’t make it any easier for us to swallow. The Copa Del Rey might not have been a competition that counted in the same way as La Liga and Europe, but we were shattered by losing that night.
At any big club, through the last third of a season, games are coming thick and fast. It seems as if there’s never time to rest properly. Sometimes there’s not the time to prepare properly either. If you’re playing well and getting results, adrenalin and confidence will carry you through. But, if not, it feels as if the team never gets the chance to put things right: you’re straight on to the next fixture, whether you’re feeling ready for it or not. After losing to Zaragoza, we went up to Bilbao and lost 4–2 in the league at the weekend. Seven days earlier it had been Real for the Treble. Now everybody was shaking their heads saying: Look, the wheels have come off.
If there was ever an occasion to bring out the best in a Real Madrid team, it would be the home leg of a Champions League tie. On 24 March we were at the Bernebeu to play Monaco in the quarter-final. All season, we’d been taking too long to get started in games. I’d scored against Betis two minutes into the start of a new season. Since then it had always seemed like we were vulnerable early on. Sure enough, Monaco scored first that night and, for a while, it felt as if the belief had gone out of us as a team. But after half-time, we played some of the best football I’ve ever had a part in and got ourselves into a situation where the tie should have been won. Ivan Helguera equalised and Zidane, Figo and Ronaldo took us to 4–1. I picked up a booking which meant I would miss the second leg. At the time, to be honest, I didn’t give it a second thought. Surely we’re through to the semis now, aren’t we?
Then, just before full-time, Fernando Morientes headed in Monaco’s second. Morientes is strong. He’s clever too and very good at holding the ball up, and was always a popular player at the Bernebeu. It’s good having him back at the club now. That night, though: there he was, out on loan but able to play against us, and scoring in front of Real’s fans. Even so, his goal shouldn’t have made any difference. We were confident, after the game, that we’d done enough. Some of the stuff we’d played in that half hour when we’d scored four was as good as any we’d played all season. Maybe, we thought, the stutter was out of our system. On the Sunday we absolutely hammered Sevilla in La Liga: Ronaldo got another couple and we won 5–1.
As it turned out, we were just being set up for our fall. You wouldn’t have found many people fancying a Monaco–Chelsea semi-final, would you, after we’d beaten them and Chelsea had drawn at home to Arsenal two weeks before? I saw the second leg of our quarter-final against Monaco on TV in Courchevel. I’d wanted to travel with the team but Real told me to have a two-day break instead. Watching the pictures and getting driven mad by the French commentary, I was sure that Raul’s goal in the first half had killed the tie. The game was always open, though, just like the first leg had been at the Bernebeu. We didn’t try and sit on the lead. Remember Ronaldo’s hat-trick at Old Trafford? Killing games off has never really been the way Real Madrid play.
We could have had two or three goals ourselves in the second half but it was Monaco who got them. They went on to prove again against Chelsea in the semi-final that they could play and that they were up for a battle. Against us, their midfield player, Ludovic Giuly had a fantastic game: no wonder Barcelona went out and bought him this summer. He scored twice and Morientes – who else? – got the other. Watching the match, I honestly never thought we were going to lose until the final whistle went: right at the end, Raul missed putting a Zidane cross away by a couple of inches. That’s all it took for us to go out on away goals. There’s an expectation about Real in the Champions League. It’s a pressure that the club takes on itself because of its history: last season we missed out on winning the thing for a tenth time. Even so, I couldn’t have imagined what a blow getting knocked out would be to us until it actually happened.
Osasuna had only won once at the Bernebeu in twenty-five years but, the weekend after we lost to Monaco, they came to Madrid and beat us 3–0. It was a terrible night. We conceded horrible goals and couldn’t score ourselves, however many chances we made. Ronaldo got a knock, too, that left him struggling for the rest of the season. By the end, the white handkerchiefs w
ere waving around the Bernebeu and the fans, who’d welcomed me so warmly back in August and had expected so much from the team, were whistling and jeering as we trooped off after the game. Who knows what goes first? Is it your legs? Is it in your mind? We’ve let the season slip away was how it was already starting to feel.
We had a couple of days at a training camp in La Manga the following week: to recharge and, maybe, just to get away from the headlines and the fans giving us stick at the Ciudad Deportiva. In the Madrid derby the following Saturday, we knew we had a point to prove. All of Spain would be watching and waiting. Even though we finished the game with ten men, we held on and beat Atletico 2–1. The win put us back on top of La Liga but it was for the last time that season. Once Valencia had beaten Real Zaragoza on the Sunday, the title was out of our hands. From being eight points clear two months before, we were now two points behind and had to go into a run of games against other teams at the top who were just hitting best form. By the time we’d lost away to Depor and at home to Barc?a, we were pretty much finished.
Even at the end of the season, we were making enough chances to win games. The difference was we weren’t scoring. Defensively, mistakes that we’d been getting away with in the first six months of the season were now getting punished every time. They say you make your own luck in football: well, we weren’t making any. We lost at home to Mallorca and then away to Murcia. In that second game, the ref gave a really soft penalty against us in the first half and I got myself sent off for complaining about it. I couldn’t believe it. Obviously I shouldn’t have let my frustration about a busy linesman – and what had happened to our season – get the better of me but, after all the jokes about me struggling to learn the language, I got a red card because of something I said in perfect Spanish. Maybe that was why the ref decided to make a name for himself. Lots of the other lads had been shouting the same. He must just have been surprised to hear it coming from me.
That red card left me sitting in the stands, watching our last game of the season against Real Sociedad at the Bernebeu. The title had gone. Valencia had won it, which pleased their fans and just about everybody else in Spain it seemed. There’s a bit of the ‘Anyone But United’ mentality as regards Real Madrid. We still had plenty to play for, though, because the club was desperate for automatic qualification for the following season’s Champions League. I’ve never enjoyed watching football: I’d always rather be playing. That was especially true the evening we lost against Sociedad. They beat us 4–1. In the first half, especially, they looked like they were going to score every time they attacked. Watching from the stands, there was nothing I could do. Not that me playing would have been enough to make the difference, I suppose, but I could at least have been giving it a go.
It was a strange atmosphere at the Bernebeu on that last day of the season and I got caught up in it. The place was half empty and I don’t think it was simply anger that people were feeling. There were jeers and some of the hardcore fans turned their backs on the game – literally – early on, but I think most supporters couldn’t really believe what was happening in front of them. Real supporters know their football. We looked a completely different team now to the one that had been threatening to win everything for three quarters of the season. Our shape and our self-belief had just disappeared in the space of a couple of months.
As the Sociedad goals went in, I felt like covering my eyes. I’d come to this magnificent stadium, given the chance to play with the world’s best players for the world’s most famous team. It had seemed for six months that this amazing adventure was going to come complete with an instant happy ending. The people in Madrid, the fans here at our home, had been so warm towards me, welcoming from the start. Despite any problems along the way, I’d not regretted any of it for a moment. I didn’t even regret that awful last game of the season. I just felt as if the supporters deserved better. One trophy, never mind three, would have been the right way to say gracias, but we failed to give them anything after promising so much. It sank in: a reminder that nobody can write their own script when it comes to football, however hard they try. At least I think Real’s supporters understand that, if nothing else, since arriving in Madrid I’ve tried very hard indeed.
I’ve been very lucky in my career to play for clubs where only the best is good enough. It’s the same at Real as it was at United. A season that finishes without a trophy is a season where the standard’s not been met. In Madrid, winning silverware has become second nature and it wasn’t really a surprise that Carlos Queiroz lost his job and the club – and particularly the President, Senor Perez – spent the summer putting things right. We’ve signed good players and it’ll be a treat playing club football alongside Michael Owen this season. We’ve got a great manager in Senor Camacho. And we’re all going to make sure that what happened last time doesn’t happen again. After all, looking back, I don’t think we were that far off last season being a very special one at the Bernebeu.
The Beckhams’ first year in Madrid wasn’t easy. I love it here: the sunshine, the late lunches, the siestas, the clean streets, the friendliness of the people. Spaniards are proud of who they are and they’re right to be. I love the family life I see going on around me too. One of my favourite restaurants in Madrid – and I’ve found a few – is the Asador Donostiarra. The boss – el dueno – is named Pedro and his hospitality sums up everything about how people in Madrid have been towards me since I arrived.
Just before I left Spain to join up with England for Euro 2004, I found myself sitting on my own at the Asador. I’d got into the habit of stopping in for lunch after training. Sitting on the next table was a family all dressed up for their meal out together: mum, dad, and their son and daughter. The little girl must have been about six or seven, a year or two older than Brooklyn. I looked up from my tapas and we exchanged a little smile between us. Next thing, she’d started poking her tongue out at me and chuckling every time she could catch my eye. Dad kept telling her to stop. We were all laughing. Family counts for a lot here. And, of course, it counts for a lot with me too. This coming season, I hope I’ll not be sitting on my own next to a family of madridistas too often. I’ll be with the boys and with Victoria, and who knows? We might all be talking in Spanish over dinner as well. It’s slow, but I’m getting there. Es Verdad.
As far as football goes, I can’t say my first season at Real was a success because it’s about the team and we ended up without anything to show for the football we’d played up until March. What I can say is that I couldn’t have asked for my settling in at a new club to have gone any better. My team-mates and the supporters made me welcome almost from the moment I got off the plane at Barajas. It’s been a privilege training and playing alongside the squad at Real and I genuinely believe I’ve taken a step forward as a player because of the experience. I’m sure Carlos Queiroz will be a real asset to the gaffer back at Old Trafford. In the meantime, I’ve him to thank for giving me a first season in central midfield.
There’s a museum at the Bernebeu that’s stuffed full of trophies dating back through the years and where you can sit and watch clips from Real’s European Cup wins from the past. What I like best of all, though, in amongst all the grainy footage and the shiny silverware is a wall of photos. They’re like passport pictures blown up to about eight or ten inches square. Every single player who’s ever played for the club in European competition is on that wall. The greatest names like di Stefano and Puskas, Zidane and Ronaldo, take their place alongside the others without any fuss. I’m very proud that my photo’s going to have a place on that wall in its own time: an England captain who came and played his part in the story of the world’s most celebrated club. And, as far as I’m concerned, the adventure’s only just begun.
I know I’m going to be proud of having been a part of the life of this city too. For all that being chased around by paparazzi has been a strain and for all that I’ve missed England and my life and friends and family there, I’ve already started to fe
el at home in Spain. If I didn’t know it already, being here and experiencing one of the darkest days in Madrid’s history, 11 March 2004, made me realise how much I’d grown into the place. I found out about what had happened at Atocha when Terry phoned me early that morning at the house we were renting last season. The train station where nearly 200 innocent people lost their lives is about ten minutes away from our office in the middle of town.
I’ve had a handful of experiences in my life that I wouldn’t want to live through again, but the Madrid bombings were horror on a scale that somehow took you outside all your own personal concerns, even at the same time as your instincts told you to pull the people you love most closer to you. Victoria and the boys were out in Spain that morning as well. Terry and Jennie Byrne came over later and stayed the next couple of nights with us.
Thinking back, I wondered why we’d never even thought, at the time, about getting away, escaping what seemed like a threat to everyone in the city. In the days and weeks after the atrocity, I think I was feeling the same kinds of emotions – anger and sorrow and disbelief – that I saw on the faces of everyone around us in Madrid. I’d been here long enough – and made enough friends – that, like everyone else it seemed, I knew people who’d lost someone they loved in the explosions. It was an awful way to realise it and it still chills me that the bombings happened at all. But the experience made me understand that what had been someone else’s city when I’d arrived had become a place I thought of as my city now too. I’ve only been here twelve months, but Madrid itself – as well as its football club – has already found its way into my bones.
18
Let’s Face It
‘David, we may have a slight problem.’
I can think of better ways to prepare for win-or-bust games than the week we had leading up to our final Euro 2004 qualifier against Turkey. The first inkling I had about the storm that was going to break around Rio Ferdinand’s head was the night before the team got together to start our build-up to the match in Istanbul. There’s an idea that I’m involved in big decisions with England. People misunderstand my relationship with Sven-Goran Eriksson, I think, and imagine that our respect for one another somehow means I’m consulted about everything from travel arrangements to team selection. In fact, when it comes down to it, although I’m England captain and enjoy the extra responsibility that comes with the job, I’m just another of Sven’s players. I was surprised when he called me that evening back in early October 2003:
David Beckham: My Side Page 43