China frenzy building for Beckham's Real debut
David Beckham's debut for Real Madrid is likely to be the most widely watched sporting event China has staged with almost one billion people in the country having access to Saturday's game.
David Beckham's debut for Real Madrid is likely to be the most widely watched sporting event China has staged with almost one billion people in the country having access to Saturday's game.
Real will play a select squad composed of players from four Chinese A League teams in front of a sell-out 50,000 crowd at the Workers' Stadium in Beijing.
The game, which kicks off at 2000 local time (1200 GMT), is the first of Real's four-match promotional tour through the Far East.
After joining Real from Manchester United for 35 million euros on July 1, this will be the first test of how Beckham bolsters the team's attack, led by Raul and Ronaldo, and complements fellow midfielders Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo.
The match also marks the debut of new coach Carlos Queiroz.
Chinese soccer fans know the fixture by its local media billing: "The Dragon-Horse War".
Real, whose Chinese name "Huang Ma" means "Royal Horse", face the Dragon Team.
By Chinese standards, the team are no slouches and includes several internationals.
Among them are Yang Chen, who spent several years in the German first division at Eintracht Frankfurt and St Pauli, and defender Li Weifeng, who had a brief spell with Everton last year. Retired striker Gao Feng is also making a cameo appearance.
With the big match almost upon them, Beckham-mania appears to have gone to the fans' heads
It was evident at the Xu Kai beauty parlour on the capital's south side, where fans were opting for the swashbuckling twin ponytails the Englishman has popularised in the week since he began training with Real.
The style is dubbed the "Little Bei head", after Beckham's Chinese nickname.
"Last year, a lot of people also wanted Beckham's hair," said master stylist Xu Kai.
"This year Real have come over and Beckham is in China, so even more people love Beckham and even more people want the Beckham hairdo," he told Reuters Television.
Crowds have greeted Real and Beckham everywhere they have been since their arrival last week and about 500 Chinese fans swarmed the Beijing Hotel on Friday.
Not that Real have exactly gone out of the way to meet the fans.
On Friday, they skipped a tour of the Forbidden City after landing in Beijing after midnight
In Kunming, they stranded hundreds of rain-drenched fans who paid to see practices and bowed out of a banquet with the provincial governor prematurely, blaming mix-ups with local organisers.
But their celebrity might rub off in more positive ways.
After Real vacate their $320 suites at the Beijing Hotel, the hotel plans to auction towels, bathrobe, combs and shampoo bottles printed with the players' names, Ms. Fan of the hotel public relations department told Reuters.
Proceeds will go to children of nurses and doctors who died on the front lines of Beijing's battle against the SARS virus.