David Robert Joseph Beckham, (born 2 May 1975) is an English professional football (soccer) midfielder who plays for Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy. He is also currently a member of the England national team.

He was chosen runner-up for FIFA World Player of the Year twice, and as recently as 2004 was the world's highest-paid footballer. He was Google's most searched of all sports topics in both 2003 and 2004. Such global recognition has made him an elite advertising brand and a top fashion icon.

Beckham was captain of England from 15 November 2000 to 2 July 2006. He made 58 appearances as captain, and ended his tenure in that role after the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals. He continued to make contributions for the England national team in 2007 competitions.

David Beckham's story starts out near London, where he was born to a family of Manchester United fans. Despite being so close to clubs like West Ham United, Arsenal or Chelsea, Beckham's aim was always the Red Devils club. As luck would have it, on his fourteenth birthday, he was taken in the Manchester youth program, and he even starred next to the senior team...as a mascot.

Just 4 years later, he went on to play for Sir Alex Ferguson's senior squad, but his performance still needed fine tuning, so he was loaned to Preston North End for a year, returning to Manchester with some match experience. He quickly gained his place in the squad, despite his young age and became one of Manchester's most preeminent players during the following decade.

Beckham's career began when he signed a professional contract with Manchester United, making his first-team debut in 1992 aged 17. During his time there, United won the Premiership title six times, the FA Cup twice, and the UEFA Champions League in 1999. He left Manchester United to sign for Real Madrid in 2003, where he remained for four seasons.

His most successful season with Manchester is undoubtedly 1999, when the club achieved the Treble (League, Cup and Champions League in the same season) and with David Beckham playing soccer like never before.

It's around then that he "trademarked" his famous free kicks and crosses and seeing some footage of David Beckham in action during that period will shed all doubts as to whether or not his superstardom status has a solid basis in his playing style, or just his good looks.

His career did have a few rough moments, the most notable one being in 1998 with the English national side, at that year's World Cup. In the Second Round, where England would play Argentina, Beckham was taunted by Argentinean midfielder Diego Simeone and he responded with a swing towards the player, which earned him a red card for bad behavior on the pitch.

With England losing the match and being knocked out of the tournament, all blame fell on David Beckham, as the English newspapers put him against the wall and fired up some poisonous articles. Any other player would have stayed low, or even quit soccer, but David Beckham's ambition brought him back to the top. His performance with Manchester the following year, earned him back the respect of his fans and the entire world.

By the time David Beckham moved to Real Madrid in 2003, he was already a well-known star on the international stage. In his four years with the Madrid club he managed to win the Spanish league once, but his performance was deemed poorer than what he was playing at Manchester.

Many attributed this loss of form due to the new system found at Real and the fact that at Madrid he wasn't the "star" of the team anymore, since he was playing next to other internationally famous soccer players like Zinedine Zidane, Raul or Roberto Carlos.

In January 2007, it was announced that Beckham would leave Real Madrid and sign a five-year contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy. He played his final match with Real on 17 June, after which the team was awarded the 2006-07 La Liga championship.

Beckham's new contract with the Galaxy, effective 1 July 2007, gives him the highest salary of any MLS player in history. He debuted for the team on 21 July in a friendly versus Chelsea FC at the Home Depot Center.

Women's soccer in the United States never would have been the same if Mia Hamm hadn't started up soccer when she was young. She had such an impact on women's soccer that she is often thought to mean as much for it as Pele or Cruyff meant for men's soccer.

Mia Hamm's childhood circled around sports and athleticism and as her brother recalled, she was faster and more athletic than most of the boys on the block, so she was able to play competitively with and against them.

After taking up youth soccer training at her school's team when she was only 12 years old, she learned the basics of soccer and started enjoying the sport more and more. Little did she know that three years later, when she was just 15, she would be called up for the United States national women's soccer team, becoming the youngest player ever to play for her country at that level (one of her first broken records).

That was kind of a weird situation, since Mia Hamm was a soccer player for her national squad but didn't have a fully professional playing contract with a club. But after seeing her performances, the North Carolina Tar Heels quickly signed her and they made quite a deal, since Mia Hamm stayed with the club for 4 seasons, scoring over 100 goals during her time here.

Probably one of Mia Hamm's most important accomplishments is that she managed to bring women's soccer to a level close to what men are playing. She is one of the two women named in Pele's "List of 125 Best Soccer Players of All Times" and she is a symbol of women's sports throughout the World.

She also holds two FIFA World Player of the Year awards, which she got in 2001 (the first year the trophy was given) and 2002. Unfortunately, she would have gotten a lot more of these awards, but with the World Player of the Year awards being granted for women when Mia Hamm was already nearing the end of her career, she didn't really have a chance to widen her trophy room.