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Best 'defense' of Beckham I've heard is: "He's as intelligent as he needs to be to kick a ball."
Sadly soccer players in the UK get selected from a young age (<10 in some cases) to join academies and get it drilled into them that school isn't important if you can play soccer. These kids see the wages the top level players get and imagine it could be them, so they spend every spare moment training and not studying. Then, when the 99% who don't make the grade get cut, they have little to fall back on.