White Angels: Beckham, Real Madrid and the New Football - Hardcover

Beyond race, faith, politics, class, sex or age, football is the great global religion. One of the most striking phenomena of the early 21st century is how the popularity of the game the British invented 150 years ago has exploded, attracting millions of new devotees. Women everywhere are flocking to the game, as are the hitherto pagan peoples of China, Japan and the United States. At the epicenter of this vast but benevolent explosion are David Beckham and the club he joined in 2003, Real Madrid. No athlete in the world - and maybe no single individual - provokes more widespread fascination than the Londoner with the film-star looks. No sports team anywhere exudes more glamour, has won more competitions or possesses a more dazzling collection of superstars than Real Madrid. The fusion of the two has gripped the attention of literally millions of people, changing the face of the world's favourite sport, marking a clear divide between what came before and what will come after; between the Old Football and the New. "White Angels" looks at how David Beckham's transfer took place, the machinations and intrigue behind the deal. It exhaustively details Beckham's first year at Real, and how he fared on the field itself alongside the such global stars as Figo, Zidane, Carlos, Raul and Ronaldo. John Carlin, currently a Spanish resident, has been a foreign correspondent for many British newspapers. A football fanatic, he covered the World Cup in 2002 for the "Observer" and "el Pais". In the writing of this book he has had unprecedented access to the Real Madrid team traveling with them to matches, conducting extensive interviews with the players, its manager Jorge Valdano and its charismatic and driven chairman Florentino Perez.

John Carlin has lived in Spain for the last five years. He is half-Spanish, half-British and bilingual. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for The Times, the Independent, the Observer and the Daily Mail in such diverse places as Washington, South Africa and Nicaragua, and in recent years has written extensively on football. He has scripted a Channel Four documentary on Diego Maradona.