TO JUDGE from the audience that David Beckham gave Sky Sports this week, the England captain’s life abroad is much as it is portrayed in the Vodafone advert, where El Becks savours the Spanish sunshine and sends cheerful images via his phone to the Neville brothers back in rainy Manchester. The grey and gloom of his final months at Old Trafford lifted by his move to Madrid, the outlook is fine and bright.

Or, as Beckham himself frequently put it during the interview, “unbelievable” and “amazing”. Evidently much about life with Real Madrid is unbelievable and amazing: his first day at the club, the Spanish public, playing central midfield, Roberto Carlos, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, Raúl. The chat is typical Beckham: schlock and awe, a blend of anodyne observations and curiously touching admissions of vulnerability. One of the globe’s most hero-worshipped men cannot help venerating his colleagues.

“The first day I was really nervous,” Beckham said. “Obviously you see the likes of Zidane, Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos walking in, and Figo and Raúl. They were all great to me. I needed to feel welcomed. And that’s what they did.” Beckham has struck up an unlikely friendship with Roberto Carlos. “For a man that doesn’t actually speak hardly any English we get on really well,” he said. Insert your own joke at this point.

“I would probably regard him as one of my better friends,” Beckham added. After all, they have much in common, such as an aptitude for free kicks and being linked with summer moves to Chelsea on an almost daily basis.

Observers say that Beckham has developed an almost telepathic bond with Ronaldo. At present they are even suffering from the same stomach virus. The Brazil forward, Beckham believes, is “another amazing player. There’s certain players in the world that have got that magic touch.” Zidane, though, is “the most unbelievable player I’ve ever seen”.

As for Luis Figo, who plays in the same position wide on the right that Beckham graced with distinction at club and international level. “I knew when I came that people were saying, ‘there’s going to be an argument between you and Luis’,” he said. “There is no argument. It’s great that the manager’s worked it around that he plays on the right and I play in the middle. He only does things that great players do.”

Beckham conveyed such enthusiasm for the career-enhancing effects of a controversial move towards the centre ground that if it all implodes at the Bernabéu, a job as a Labour spin doctor surely awaits him.

Doubts over whether Beckham and Figo could fit into the same team led to mischievous suggestions last summer that the Portugal midfield player would be sold. Figo was asked last week to name his favourite Madrid team-mate. He omitted to mention Beckham: “Zidane, Raúl, Ronaldo . . . I can’t forget other important pieces in the squad, such as Michel (Salgado), Roberto (Carlos), Iker (Casillas) .” Still, even if Beckham is not in Figo’s top six, “it’s quite unbelievable the way people have taken to me. People were wary about me coming here. All I ever heard was, ‘he’s only going there because he can sell a few shirts’.” Wholly unfair, as he has proved he can flog Predator boots, video games, books, sunglasses and Pepsi, too.

The tabloids have frothed with reports that Jordan, the pneumatic model, will devote a chapter to the Beckhams in her forthcoming autobiography. She has arguably tackled more top-level footballers in recent years than David Batty. It is claimed that she had an affair with Frank Lampard, while Dwight Yorke is the father of her child.

Beckham reflected that Brooklyn, his four-year-old son, cannot even play in the park without being hounded by the media. So it is unlikely that Jordan, whom one suspects would ache with loneliness if fewer than half a dozen paparazzi trailed her every waking steps, could have engineered a rendezvous with one of the world’s most famous men without anyone noticing. Anyway, rumours of any kind do not affect Beckham “ because my family are my No 1 priority. That will always be the case.”

The divorce with Manchester United still hurts. “I’m a Man United fan. Always have been and always will be. But now I’ve moved on to a club which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest club, in the world with great players and I’m enjoying my time here.”

What would an Old Trafford return in the Champions League be like? “I’d love to go back there as a Real Madrid player because I think the two clubs are so special. To be involved in a game like that would be a dream.” And possibly a nightmare for his former manager. Since Beckham left England, has he spoken to Sir Alex Ferguson, the man who nurtured him in the days before he became the face that launched a thousand haircuts? “No.”

Amazing, although entirely believable.

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