On February 15, 2003, one of the most notable ruptures of the decade between a club and a player was evidenced with an episode for the history of English football. Manchester United had just lost at Old Trafford to Arsenal and were eliminated from the FA Cup. Both Ferguson and Wenger had their best marks. The Scotsman lined up Ferdinand, Nevilla, Scholes, Keane, Van Nistelrooy, Giggs and also David Beckham. The presence of the Londoner on the green in that game was not the news, this was what happened after the match.
The United coach stormed into the locker room and ‘kicked’ a boot that opened a small wound to Beckham, which required several points. As it became known a posteriori this happened in a context of tension between the two that ended up closing with the departure of the English media to Real Madrid since the coach considered that Beckham wanted to be above him and the club,
Through an interview on FourFourTwo, Carlos Queiroz, former Real Madrid coach and, at that precise moment, second to Ferguson, wanted to clarify and shed light on the story. Although the boot throw was always said to have been intentional, Ferguson, according to Queiroz, was lucky to end up wounding Beckham.
The visible boot wound before a match between Manchester United and Juventus in the Champions League.
MARTIN RICKETT (EPA)
“It is time to tell the truth of this story. Someone once told me that if Ferguson actually hit Beckham with that boot on purpose, Sir Alex had a ton of quality to his left foot. He was in the locker room that day so let’s get things in order. It was not a good launch because The boot first touched the table and only then went straight to Beckham. Sorry Sir Alex, but your left foot is not as good as you think “, assured the Portuguese in the British magazine FourFourTwo.
After that episode, both Queiroz and Beckham stopped at Real Madrid. The Englishman and the Portuguese won the Spanish Super Cup as a player and coach in the season of their arrival. At the end of this, Queiroz returned to be second again to Sir Alex Ferguson while Beckham if he remained in the white club. The Englishman won the league in his last season in Madrid and went to Los Angeles. Currently, Beckham is president of Inter Miami, an MLS team, and Queiroz continues his career on the bench coaching the Egypt team.