David Beckham was never going to have an ordinary football career.
When Netflix released Beckham, the four-part documentary felt almost inevitable. Few players have lived quite so comfortably between football and popular culture, and even fewer have a career that can be told through such a ridiculous collection of shirts.
Manchester United. England. Real Madrid. LA Galaxy. AC Milan. Paris Saint-Germain.
Different clubs. Different countries. Plenty of very good kits.
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For all the attention around the haircuts, magazine covers, celebrity friendships and global advertising campaigns, Beckham could seriously play.
That sometimes gets lost.
The boy from Leytonstone came through Manchester United’s famous Class of ’92 alongside Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt and the Neville brothers, then developed into one of the finest passers and crossers of his generation.
And he knew how to make an entrance.
On the opening weekend of the 1996/97 Premier League season, a 21-year-old Beckham spotted Wimbledon goalkeeper Neil Sullivan off his line and casually launched the ball over him from inside his own half.
That was that. Everybody knew the name.
Off the pitch, Beckham became something English football hadn’t really seen before. His relationship and eventual marriage to Victoria Adams pushed him far beyond the traditional boundaries of football fame, while deals with Adidas, Pepsi, Armani and countless other brands turned Brand Beckham into an industry of its own.
Sir Alex Ferguson sometimes viewed that attention rather differently. Their relationship became increasingly strained as Beckham’s fame grew, eventually ending with his departure from Old Trafford for Real Madrid in 2003.
But reducing Beckham to celebrity misses the point.
He won six Premier League titles and the Champions League with Manchester United, La Liga with Real Madrid, MLS Cups with LA Galaxy and Ligue 1 during his final spell with PSG. For England, he won 115 caps, captained his country and produced one of Wembley’s great individual performances against Greece in 2001.
Then there was the passing.
Those crosses from the right. The clipped diagonals. Free kicks that seemed to hang in the air before dropping exactly where Beckham wanted them.
And through all of it, he wore some absolutely brilliant football shirts.
These are some of our favourites.
Manchester United 1994-96 Home Shirt
This is Beckham before Becks.
Umbro’s 1994-96 Manchester United home shirt is peak mid-90s football: lace-up collar, Sharp Viewcam sponsor, oversized crest and enough detailing to make modern minimalist kit designers nervous.
It also accompanied some important early moments in Beckham’s career.
He scored his first Champions League goal against Galatasaray at Old Trafford in December 1994, firing home in a 4-0 victory. A few months later, he made his Premier League debut against Leeds United.
The superstar version of Beckham was still a little way off. Here he was simply another enormously talented academy graduate trying to break into Ferguson’s first team.
Not for long.
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Manchester United 1996-98 Home Shirt
Before the No.7 became inseparable from Beckham, there was the No.10.
He wore it during the 1996/97 campaign, the season in which he properly announced himself to the wider football world.
The moment came at Selhurst Park against Wimbledon.
Beckham collected possession inside his own half, looked up, spotted Neil Sullivan wandering away from his goal and went for it.
From the halfway line.
The ball sailed over Sullivan and into the net, producing one of the defining goals of 90s Premier League football. It has been replayed so many times since that the shirt itself has become almost inseparable from the moment.
Another Umbro classic, too. Red body, black collar, oversized Sharp sponsor. Proper 90s United.
England 1998 World Cup Home Shirt
Then came France ’98.
And one flick of a boot changed everything.
England faced Argentina in Saint-Étienne in the last 16, with Beckham starting in midfield. Early in the second half, Diego Simeone fouled him from behind. Beckham, lying on the turf, kicked his leg backwards towards the Argentine midfielder.
Simeone went down.
Red card.
England fought on with ten men and eventually lost the match on penalties, but much of the reaction back home focused on Beckham.
It became ugly.
Newspapers blamed him. Opposition supporters abused him throughout the following domestic season. Effigies were reportedly hung outside pubs. For a 23-year-old footballer, the backlash was extraordinary.
That makes England's 1998 Umbro shirt an important piece of the Beckham story. It represents one of the lowest points of his career, but also the beginning of the comeback that followed.
Because Beckham would get another chance against Argentina.
And he wouldn’t waste it.
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Manchester United 1998/99 Champions League Shirt
You could make a strong case for this being the definitive David Beckham shirt.
The 1998/99 season ended with Manchester United winning the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League. No English club had completed that particular treble before.
Beckham played a huge part.
With Paul Scholes and Roy Keane suspended for the Champions League final against Bayern Munich, Beckham moved into central midfield at the Camp Nou.
United trailed 1-0 as the game entered injury time.
Then came a Beckham corner. Teddy Sheringham equalised.
Another Beckham corner followed moments later. Sheringham flicked it on. Ole Gunnar Solskjær stuck out a boot.
2-1.
European champions.
Two corners. Two goals. One of football’s most ridiculous finales.
The Umbro shirt worn during that European campaign, complete with Sharp sponsor and Champions League detailing, will forever be attached to United's greatest night of the Ferguson era.
England 2001/02 Home Shirt
If France ’98 was Beckham at his lowest with England, this shirt belongs to the complete opposite.
England needed a result against Greece at Old Trafford in October 2001 to secure automatic qualification for the following summer's World Cup.
They were awful.
Beckham wasn't.
The England captain seemed to be everywhere, dragging his side through the match while Greece repeatedly threatened to spoil the evening.
Deep into stoppage time, England trailed 2-1 and won a free kick around 25 yards from goal.
You already know the rest.
Beckham stepped up and whipped the ball beyond Antonis Nikopolidis into the top corner.
2-2.
World Cup qualification secured.
Cue absolute chaos.
It remains one of the defining moments of Beckham's England career: captain, leader and dead-ball specialist all wrapped into a few seconds.
Manchester United 2002/03 Home Shirt
A new manufacturer. The beginning of the end.
Nike replaced Umbro as Manchester United's kit supplier in 2002, producing a clean red home shirt with black detailing and Vodafone across the chest.
For Beckham, it would be his final United home kit.
By this stage, the relationship between player and manager had become increasingly tense. The most famous flashpoint arrived after an FA Cup defeat to Arsenal in February 2003, when Ferguson kicked a stray boot across the dressing room and caught Beckham above the eye.
The resulting cut was photographed.
Of course it was.
A few months later, Beckham left the club he had supported as a boy and joined Real Madrid.
He departed Old Trafford with six Premier League titles, two FA Cups, a Champions League winner's medal and 85 goals in 394 appearances.
Not bad for a player supposedly distracted by his haircut.
Real Madrid 2003/04 Home Shirt
David Beckham joining Real Madrid felt almost too obvious.
The world's most famous footballer signing for the world's most glamorous football club, right in the middle of the Galácticos era.
Of course he did.
Beckham arrived in Madrid alongside Zinedine Zidane, Luís Figo, Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos, then chose the No.23 shirt — partly inspired by Michael Jordan — because Raúl already owned his familiar No.7.
The all-white Adidas kit suited him rather well.
His first season wasn't covered in trophies, but Beckham gradually won over supporters who initially wondered whether Madrid had signed a midfielder or a marketing campaign.
He could play. Very well.
Across four seasons in Spain, Beckham made 159 appearances and scored 20 goals, eventually helping Real Madrid win La Liga in his final campaign in 2006/07.
His last few months at the Bernabéu remain one of the stronger chapters of his career. After initially being frozen out following the announcement of his move to LA Galaxy, Beckham fought his way back into Fabio Capello's side and played an important role in Madrid's title run.
Exit with a trophy. Very Beckham.
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LA Galaxy 2007
This move changed more than Beckham's career.
When he signed for LA Galaxy in 2007, MLS suddenly had one of the most recognisable sportsmen on the planet.
The deal attracted enormous attention, not all of it positive. Injuries disrupted his early months, while his loan spells back in Europe occasionally frustrated Galaxy supporters who questioned where his priorities really sat.
Eventually, though, Beckham delivered.
He helped LA Galaxy win back-to-back MLS Cups in 2011 and 2012, while his arrival undoubtedly accelerated international interest in the league.
And the shirts became part of the story.
The Galaxy's white Adidas kit with navy and gold detailing became instantly recognisable with BECKHAM 23 across the back, creating one of the defining MLS player shirts of the era.
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AC Milan 2008/09 & 2009/10
Beckham wasn't quite ready to disappear from European football.
During his time with LA Galaxy, he joined AC Milan on loan in 2009, initially to maintain his fitness and keep himself in contention for England.
It worked almost too well.
Beckham fitted comfortably into Carlo Ancelotti's side, playing alongside Andrea Pirlo, Clarence Seedorf, Kaká, Ronaldinho and Paolo Maldini. Milan wanted to keep him, and Beckham himself clearly enjoyed being back at the highest level of European football.
A second loan followed in 2010.
Then disaster struck.
Playing against Chievo, Beckham ruptured his Achilles tendon. The injury ruled him out of the 2010 World Cup and kept him away from football for months.
Still, Beckham in Milan's red and black stripes remains one of the more aesthetically satisfying footballer-and-shirt combinations of his career.
No surprise there.
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Paris Saint-Germain 2012/13
One last shirt.
Beckham joined Paris Saint-Germain in January 2013 on a short-term deal, bringing his career to a close in a city and at a club that suited the occasion perfectly.
He donated the salary from his PSG contract to a children's charity and helped Carlo Ancelotti's side win Ligue 1, making France the fourth country in which Beckham won a league title.
His final appearance came against Brest at the Parc des Princes in May 2013.
Beckham captained the side.
With around ten minutes remaining, he was substituted and embraced his teammates as the stadium stood to applaud him.
There were tears.
After Manchester, Madrid, Los Angeles, Milan and Paris, one of football's most recognisable careers was finally over.
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David Beckham Football Shirts
Few players connect football, fashion and culture quite like Beckham.
You can pick almost any stage of his career and immediately picture the shirt.
The oversized Umbro collars of early Manchester United. England white at France '98. The red No.7 during the Treble season. Real Madrid's immaculate Adidas kits. Beckham 23 in Los Angeles. Milan stripes. Paris navy.
That's what makes his shirts so collectible.
They don't just represent the clubs Beckham played for. They track the changing look of football from the oversized, sponsor-heavy shirts of the 90s through to the slimmer, cleaner designs of the 2000s.
And somehow, Beckham looked right in almost all of them.
Explore our collection of David Beckham football shirts from across his career.
We've also created our own Beckham-inspired bootleg designs. You can find the full range of David Beckham bootleg T-shirts here.
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