This isn’t the fairy tale we all expected. Far from it!

And while most South Asians around the world can more identify with David Beckham as the absentee “star profile name” behind the famous film by Gurinder Chaddha featuring Parminder Nagra and Anupam Kher, this sequel with the real life monicker is quite a bit more tragic.

For those of you who aren’t football fans (football for the globe, soccer for the Americans), you may have missed the tragic events that have goaded the British press to liken the great football icon to Achilles, and fittingly because of the injury as well as the tragic Greek Hero.

In stoppage time of a SERIE match, David Beckham was harmlessly dribbling the ball sizing up down the pitch when the most harmless (it seemed) of actions befell the legend. He stumbled and fell, and laying down on the pitch and started making a motion indicating something had snapped!

And just like that Soccer’s golden boy’s career had snapped in such an unceremonious way and so unfortunate. The man who has been heralded as one of the most popular icons for over a decade. A fashionista icon for the Gay population and one hell of a football player’s demise in the span of minutes (2 to be exact) should never have been.

Its shocking really. The ironies are too great as well. Consider that Beckham was coming off his most controversial stint this past season with the LA Galaxy. In fact moving to the LA Galaxy was controversial to begin with, many presuming that Beckham in fact made this move for his wife, for celebrity (to be closer to his Hollywood pals) etc. the attention actually re-invigorated his career and popularity in a new market just a few years ago.

However, in typical Hollywood fashion, Beckham fell out of favor this year with LA fans, and was questioned for his “heart” and dedication after it was announced that he would return to AC Milan, just a few years after his unprecedented contract to come to the MLS in the USA. However, that would be unfair, because the pressure put upon Beckham to elevate US Soccer to international recognition is a task to great for any ONE player. However, just in case you didn’t buy into that, then how about this as an “aside”. In the World Cup group stage England and the USA had been placed together in the same group, and the first match of their group was going to be USA vs. ENGLAND, the first time these two teams would meet since 1958 in a world cup! Still think its ironic? The stage was set for such a heroic comeuppance for Beckham once again, as has been the case his entire career, not only against his critics, the press, the English Media, basically everyone who had been taking pot shots against Beckham his entire career! It was time for Becks to muster up one last heroic charge against the critics.

The irony of course, is it wouldn’t happen.  It was in fact “meant” to end, the mounting pressure, and the universal law of attraction, it wasn’t meant to be. Unfortunately for all of us we won’t have the please of watching those amazing amazing passes, “bending” free kicks and the other heroics Beckham was known for, in a World Cup ever again, and for that we as an audience are short changed the magic. As bad as it may be for the fans of England there is at least one person in the world for whom this “destiny unfullfilled” hurts just a bit more. for England fans dreaming of a world cup, this is a blow that all of them will tell you is “business as usual”, England’s hopes debated months before the World Cup and a major catastrophe or injury to cement doubts into reality is just “par” for the course for tormented England fans having to endure such hardship since England’s last World Cup victory in 1966.

In closing, I leave you a clip from one of David Beckham’s finest moments, a penalty kick against England’s fiercest rival, Argentina where Beckham extracts revenge for his 1998 red card dismissal against the same for just 4 years earlier, now fires the shot of revenge, and justice all in one kick. As one of my friends who attended the match along with a few hundred of his fellow England supporters in Sapporo Japan can attest, it was a moment of magic that couldn’t be scripted any better. Watch carefully after the fateful penalty kick when Beckham himself, completely aware of the moment and in fact, the crowd runs over to the part of the stadium section whereby the England crow had taken up root and as the camera pan across the sea of white and red, it is truly a moment, one of many that defined David Beckham’s career.

The Spirited Critic

Related News stories on the incident:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/david-beckham-gets-an-ode_n_502410.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=aL6Thq0SAuxQ