Former Socceroos-turned-agent Andy Bernal was David Beckham's 'right-hand man' when the star played for Real Madrid. It was a time of parties with Ronaldo, high-speed car chases, phone hacking, and a paparazzi that would stop at nothing to get a killer shot.
Parties with Ronaldo Nazário, wrist watches worth millions of dollars and a whole lot of football? Sign me up.
It was into that maelstrom of paparazzi lenses and camera flashes that former Socceroo-turned-agent Andy Bernal was caught in when he managed Beckham during his time in Spain."I was his right-hand man, I was his friend, I was his personal manager, his go-to guy, his interpreter. Beckham signed for Real Madrid during the Galactico era, when the starting line-up for Los Blancos was a who's who of football's biggest talents.
"The enormity of the whole thing — David and Victoria, they were football's version of Charles and Diana.Bernal described the day-to-day ordeal of staying ahead of the press as "insanity", with Beckham followed by hundreds of cars, motorbikes and even helicopters on a daily basis — with SAS commando-trained bodyguards arranging presidential-style cavalcades to help throw the paparazzi — and more nefarious agents — off their scent.
"My job was to lose them, then the motorcade would go another way and we'd end up at the Hard Rock Cafe. "You driving around with David and you're taking him to training and you've got commandos to look out for cars at the side. We were getting information from MI6 in London, you're doing reconnaissance missions every day. I kinda became an SAS commando."But years later, all the stress and drama takes its toll a little bit.
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