The English soccer star David Beckham on Saturday in Afghanistan paid tribute to British troops, whom he described as "most courageous boys I've seen" during a visit to the city of Helmand in the south of the country. The English soccer star David Beckham on Saturday in Afghanistan paid tribute to British troops, whom he described as "most courageous boys I've seen" during a visit to the city of Helmand, in the south.
"These guys are people with more courage than I have ever seen," Beckham said in a program of the British Forces Broadcasting Service, a radio and television service of the British armed forces, said AFP.
"It's scary, very scary what can be felt," added the player, in his view of Helmand, one of the most dangerous provinces in the country, having come on Friday at Camp Bastion, a major NATO military base located in that region of Afghanistan.
"Yesterday, one soldier died, and you see the flags at half mast, and feel the tension," said Beckham.
"I've represented my country on several occasions in the field of play but these guys representing our country so incredible," he estimated.
The former captain of the England football can not compete in the 2010 World Cup which starts on June 11 after suffering a tear in his Achilles tendon.
Some 10,000 British soldiers are serving in Afghanistan, mainly in Helmand. In total, 286 soldiers of the country have lost their lives in that province since the start of military intervention in Afghanistan in autumn 2001.