David Beckham has praised his former manager Sir Alex Ferguson for the way he helped him regain his confidence after the 1998 World Cup.

While playing for the Three Lions in a game against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup, Beckham was shown Red Card because he had kicked out an opposition player. England eventually ended up being defeated in that game in the penalty shootouts and with that defeat; they got knocked out of the tournament as well.

That sending off incident affected Beckham’s image adversely. The English fans started hating him. He also got a few death threats.

According to Beckham, that period was very difficult for him. He had lost his self confidence and he was finding it hard to concentrate on his game but because of the support that he got from Sir Alex Ferguson and the fans of Manchester United, he managed to put his career on track again.

Talking to the reporters a couple of days ago, Beckham said, “It was really a horrible period. All of a sudden, I was a villain in England. People were intimidating me. I was getting death threats too.”

“Sir Alex helped me a lot during that tough period. The Manchester United supporters treated me pretty well too.”

“I am really happy that I managed to come out of that phase. I got stronger as a person after that incident. When you face criticism, you shouldn’t give up. You need to back your capabilities. If you do that, you can leave the difficult periods behind.”

One would definitely not have expected Beckham to give these sorts of statements especially after what Sir Alex has written about him in his recently published book.

In that book, the former Manchester United manager has criticized Beckham for his undisciplined behaviour towards the end of his tenure at Old Trafford.