Flags flutter in the summer breeze. The number 250 is writ large. As the United States celebrates its independence from the UK, the pre-eminent superpower of the past century continues to be culturally co-dependent on its former ruler. Our talk-show hosts, our chefs, our pop stars are relevant and revered here in an outsized, supersized way. They like carpool karaokes, kitchen nightmares, love islands, brat summers, the crown and, most unnervingly of all, Arsenal. At a time when the special relationship is going through the motions and seems downright weird in political terms (take the “fat foxes” mentioned in calls between the White House and No. 10 Downing Street), one bond seems stronger than ever. Arise, Sir David Beckham. During my time playing Championship Manager in the 1990s, a pastime New York City’s mayor Zohran Mamdani enjoyed too, I do not recall clicking on Beckham’s profile and seeing on his list of attributes: soft power: 20, cultural relevance: 20, entrepreneurial flair: 20. Sir David is tier one in transatlantic transcendence. Bend it. Brand it. Become it. Beckham’s manifest destiny is clear. A Brit living the American dream to the fullest. He’s not quite flooding the zone. But filling the blank space meant for a soccer star America can call its own. This was presumably supposed to be Freddy Adu’s time as co-host attache. Alas, the only Freddy that Americans have been talking about this summer is the mysterious X user @FreddyLa7, a German tourist on a World Cup road trip. Or is he? While @FreddyLa7 has disappeared along with his country’s national team, Beckham has not. At times, it feels like he is the everywhere everyman. Beckham at the USMNT game. Beckham at the England game. Beckham in Miami for Messi and Argentina’s game. Beckham in the TV ads when the game goes to commercial breaks. Beckham, the English face of a (North) American World Cup. Beckham, the World Cup statesman. As a fellow Brit, you can’t help but marvel at it. Beckham (and Tom Cruise) are shown on the stadium’s big screen during the American national anthem at the opening game of this World Cup on U.S. soil (Stu Forster/Getty Images)After all, the UK has done a lot worse recently when appointing its ambassadors to the United States.If this is as breathless as England playing at altitude in Mexico City the other night, it’s because Beckham’s prevalence in the U.S. does take your breath away. They even teach a class on it at Harvard Business School. More on that later.That Beckham is big isn’t news. But this big? At yet another inflection point? Juice still left in the squeeze? No wonder they study the phenomenon.The near ubiquity is down to Beckham’s own uniquities. Here is an East Ender who loves Americana. As a kid growing up in the London district of Leytonstone, he was tuning into Knight Rider and The A-Team when he wasn’t watching Bryan Robson play for Manchester United. “But you could also find me on the sofa, watching the iconic Golden Girls with my mum,” Beckham reminisced.He has been coming to the States for years, long before his move to LA Galaxy in 2007. “I first came to America when I was 16, on a soccer tour to Dallas,” he said. “A couple of years later, I came to Los Angeles for the first time on a coaching trip, which coincided with the 1994 World Cup. The fact that my beloved England hadn’t qualified wasn’t enough to dampen the excitement of me being in the town for the greatest show on earth.”The day after his infamous red card at the 1998 World Cup in France, where did Beckham go? He flew by Concorde to New York. Barely 23 at the time, he was hardly an unknown to Americans even then.Backstage at a Spice Girls concert at Madison Square Garden, his face was familiar to Madonna when she walked in. “Oh, you’re the soccer player, aren’t you?” she said. The one who scored from the halfway line against Wimbledon. One half of the defining celebrity couple of the era: David, a member of United, the club that considered itself the biggest in the world. Victoria, a member of the biggest girl band the world has ever known. Your TLCs, Destiny’s Childs and Pussycat Dollses never got near the 100 million records sold by the Spice Girls.American motifs are everywhere in Beckham’s life. They’re like breadcrumbs leading to America.David and Victoria were expecting their first child at the time of that concert at the Garden. They named him Brooklyn. Their wedding anniversary is on July 4. The No 23 shirt Beckham chose to wear after he moved from United to Real Madrid was an acknowledgement of his passion for American sports and revealed much about his own aspirations.“The more I saw, the more I became obsessed with America, its stars, and especially its sports,” he said. “In the USA, sports was box-office entertainment. I love the ambition, the scale, the sheer entertainment value of U.S. sports, American football with its Super Bowl, and the NBA with the superstars who transcended the game and dominated popular culture, like rock stars. No one was more powerful than Michael Jordan, the greatest of all time.“I loved everything about him, his talent on the court, his style off it, and his impact far beyond the game. What Michael Jordan did had a huge effect on me then, and still inspires me to this day. He is the reason that I wore number 23, and he showed that you could be more than just an athlete.”Beckham was 31 when he decided to move to America.Madrid’s club president at the time, Ramon Calderon, could not understand it. He did not possess what distinguished Beckham as a footballer. The vision not only to play a raking diagonal pass for Zinedine Zidane to volley home, but to see the future of the game itself. “David Beckham will be a B-list actor living in Hollywood,” was Calderon’s reaction to his decision to join LA Galaxy, one of the founding members of MLS.The comment did not age well at the time. Marginalised at Madrid, Beckham tenaciously played himself back into Fabio Capello’s team and left for the U.S. as a La Liga champion. Almost two decades later, Calderon’s prediction continues its exponential decay.On the first weekend of this World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, Beckham walked a special green carpet on Hollywood Boulevard. (The fake turf looked better than the natural playing surface laid at the arid MetLife Stadium in New Jersey for this tournament.) Beckham knelt, as he did last November for his knighthood, in recognition of a different honour. A star on the Walk of Fame. Introducing Beckham on the podium for his acceptance speech was none other than Tom Cruise.Beckham poses next to his newly unveiled Hollywood Walk of Fame star (Lisa O’Connor/AFP via Getty Images)The two of them go way back, as Beckham’s former Galaxy team-mates know only too well. One day, in July 2007, they turned up for training at the Home Depot Center and found red velvet invitations outside each of their lockers. Cruise and Will Smith requested their presence for a party welcoming the Beckhams to town. All these years later, Beckham still found it “quite frankly mind-blowing” that “the greatest movie star of our time” wished not only to share this moment with him but to preside over his Walk of Fame ceremony. His first film night with Victoria was to watch Cruise’s Jerry Maguire together. As such, this ranked as a “pretty mad full-circle moment”.