Beckham - Fergie decided my time was up at United - Sport

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The former England captain, who joined Real Madrid for £25million in July 2003, said: "I read Bobby Charlton's book that says I was offered a contract, and that the figures offered were very fair. At that moment, I hadn't been offered any new contract at Man United.

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American dream: Beckham playing for Los Angeles Galaxy

"Sky Sports were at one of our games, and I was stood next to Gary Neville and I'd heard rumours other teams were interested in me, but I never thought it would happen and I remember turning to Gary on the pitch and saying, 'They've had talks', because I'd heard Man United had had talks with Barcelona. And Sky lip-read it wrong because they said I was saying, 'I've had talks'. "I'd never spoken to anyone at that moment. The only time I spoke to Real Madrid was after I phoned up Peter Kenyon and said, 'Can I speak to the manager? I need to know, is this what the manager wants?' "And he said, 'Yeah, it's time for you to go', and I was like, 'OK', and that was the first day I spoke to Florentino Perez at Real Madrid."

Beckham spent four seasons at the Bernabeu before making his mega-bucks move to LA Galaxy last summer.

When he agreed his £128million-deal last January he fell out with then Real coach Fabio Capello — now the man facing mission impossible with England.

But the pair worked out their differences and Beckham was reinstated to a squad that went on to win the Spanish title.

Now the 32-year-old midfielder is desperate to be part of Capello's plans and win his 100th cap against Switzerland in February.

"He's one of the best managers I've played under," Beckham added. "A lot of things happened in that last year for me at Madrid but Fabio Capello is one of the managers a lot of players look up to, players want him to manage them so I'm hoping I'll be part of that.

"There were ups and downs with me and the manager, but he brought me back into the team and he had belief in me.

"He's going to be great for the England team and everybody wants someone leading you that has the respect and the success."

For the full David Beckham's Line of Enquiry interview, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/radio2