Brand Beckham

Sports | The world’s best-known soccer player breathes life into the U.S. game | Priya Abraham

That afternoon in 1995 I first saw him while watching Manchester United play an English Premier League soccer match. The camera focused in on the team's substitute bench, and there sat this blond. "Who," I asked my brother, "is that?"

Nobody needs to ask who David Beckham is anymore. A year later, in 1996, he shot to fame in England for scoring a goal from the halfway line, sending a legendary ball past Wimbledon's goalkeeper into the net.

"Bending" the ball became Beckham's trademark, his picture went up on my wall, and he later became England's national team captain and the world's best-known, most expensive professional soccer player. Now he is a brand, along with wife Victoria, aka Posh Spice. And he has arrived in America after signing a $250 million contract to play for Major League Soccer side L.A. Galaxy.