The Most Fascinating Things We Learned From Netflix’s New David Beckham Documentary, ‘Beckham'

Netflix’s new documentary about English soccer (or football) legend David Beckham contains more than its fair share of juicy tidbits on his career and personal life. Directed by Fisher Stevens and appropriately titled Beckham, the four-part series dropped on Wednesday. With it came a barrage of previously unknown information about David and his wife, Spice Girls singer Victoria Beckham (née Adams).

In the documentary, David shares how his mental health was impacted following England’s 1998 exit from the World Cup. He also details a violent encounter between himself and Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Victoria also gets candid about how their marriage was impacted following allegations that David had an affair with his personal assistant, and reveals she was “pissed off” after he missed the birth of one of their sons to attend a photoshoot with pop stars.

Here are some of the most fascinating things we learned about David Beckham from the new documentary.

David struggled with his mental health after England’s infamous exit from the 1998 World Cup

A then-23-year-old Beckham was blamed for England’s withdrawal from the ‘98 World Cup after he violently lashed out at Argentinian Manager Diego Simeone. It led to a period of intense harassment from soccer fans, and threatened to end Beckham’s career soon after it started.

He says it left him a “mess,” unable to sleep or eat for long stretches. Victoria confirms that the experience “broke” David, and led to a diagnosis of clinical depression. David’s father, Ted, recalls his son breaking down in his arms and telling him, “I’ve let everybody down.”

“I don't think I've ever talked about it because I can't,” David admits in the doc. “It was so extreme. The whole country hated me. Wherever I went, I got abused every day."

He went on to explain how the constant abuse took its toll. “To walk down the street and see people look at you a certain way, spit at you, abuse you, come up to your face and say some of the things that they said, that's difficult," he said.

Victoria admits to resenting David and was “the unhappiest I’ve ever been” after allegations of an affair with Rebecca Loos surfaced

After moving their (at the time) two children, Brooklyn and Romeo, from the UK to Spain to support their father, Victoria reports being rocked by the local media’s hounding of their family. Matters were not helped when allegations of an affair between David and his personal assistant at the time, Rebecca Loos.

“Did I resent David? If I'm being totally honest, yes I did,” Victoria confessed. “If I'm being honest it's probably the most unhappy I have ever been in my entire life,”

Victoria didn’t feel she could speak up because she didn't want to distract her husband from the game. “It wasn't that I was being unheard, I chose to internalize a lot of it because I was always mindful of the focus that he needed.”

David missed his son’s birth because of a photoshoot with J. Lo and Beyoncé

Victoria reveals that her planned 2005 C-section birth of the couple’s son Cruz clashed with an important booking for David. “I’ve got to do a photoshoot with Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce,” Victoria recalls her husband telling her.

“I was like, 'Seriously, I'm about to burst, I'm on bed rest. Are you kidding me? You've got a damn photoshoot with Jennifer Lopez, who is gorgeous and not about to have a baby,'” Posh Spice good-naturedly raged to cameras.

After the operation, Victoria recalls seeing a front-page picture of her husband sandwiched between the pop superstars along with the headline, “What Would Posh Say?”

“'Let me tell you what Posh would say,” Victoria offers. “Posh was pissed off!”

David recalls a nasty fight between himself and Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson

After a punishing defeat at the hands of Arsenal in 2003, David and Ferguson had a violent confrontation. “We walked in the changing room and the boss is fuming. I can see it by his face,” David recalled. Ferguson read him the riot act for not following his runner in the moments before a goal, but the soccer star fought back.

“I went back at the boss and said 'no' and then I swore. I said the f-word. And then I saw him change, and I was like, ‘Shit, I really shouldn't have said that.’ I think I said the f-word too many times," he recalled.

Ferguson then threw a cleat at David, which hit him directly above the eye, giving him an injury to wear to practice for the next few weeks. At this point, David launched himself at Ferguson and admitted he had to be restrained by a fellow teammate. He confirmed, though, that ultimately there was no bad blood between himself and Feguson. “My relationship with the boss was always special. We had our moments, but I still loved him," he said.

Manchester United’s coach felt that the media spectacle around David and Victoria “changed” the player

While David and Victoria were celebrities in their own right before beginning to date, their relationship kicked off a wave of media coverage rarely seen outside Hollywood. It didn’t sit well with Manchester United’s coach, Sir Alex Ferguson.

“He changed,” Ferguson reflected. “There's no doubt about that. And all the media and celebrity attention was different from what I wanted [for the team].”

“His relationship with Victoria was pissing the manager off,” elaborated David’s former teammate Paul Scholes. “He thought it was affecting his football.”