Young David Beckham only had one goal: to play professional soccer, or football as it’s called everywhere but the United States. His childhood in East London was devoted to the game — Beckham’s father, Ted, was an unwavering source of and tough love, but the young player’s single-mindedness came from within. “My dad didn’t have to say to me, ‘Oh, don’t go out with your friends tonight,’ because I knew what was right and what was wrong,” the international sports star says now. “I didn’t have many friends growing up because I was more focused on football than I was on anything else. That’s the way it’s always been.”

Beckham has had occasion lately to reflect on his tremendous past, having recently completed the four-part documentary series BECKHAM. Directed by actor and Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Fisher Stevens (The Cove, Before the Flood), the docies traces Beckham’s meteoric rise to fame and his much-photographed relationship with wife Victoria, the designer and fashion icon who enjoyed her own stratospheric success spreading girl power as Posh Spice with her iconic pop group, the Spice Girls.

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