Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: David Beckham, England, Manchester United
Ryan Smart
FourFourTwo predicted what the England stars of 1998 would like in the year 2020 - and the results were certainly interesting.
With the emergence of AI software in recent years, it is reasonably simple for anyone to type in a prompt to see what your favourite sports star or celebrity might look like when they're a lot older.
While the results might be somewhat mixed in terms of what comes back, you know that there is a reasonable chance that the image will at least represent an older version of the celebrity in question.
Back in 1998, though, things were different, with the Internet still in its relative infancy as far as worldwide usage went.
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According to the Global Policy Forum, only 3.6 per cent of the world's population in 1998 had Internet access - compared to 67.4 per cent as recently as 2023.
As a result, there were far fewer technologically advanced pieces of software compared to what you might see today.
Back then, FourFourTwo used an early version of photo-editing technology - potentially Adobe Photoshop, which had been launched as simply 'Photoshop in 1990 before Adobe purchased the rights five years later - to predict what England star David Beckham might look like when he was older.
This was the same year in which Beckham was public enemy number one after being sent off in the World Cup round of 16 defeat to Argentina after kicking out at Diego Simeone.
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He received intense personal abuse from the media, with the Daily Mirror going as far as printing a cut-out dartboard in one of their Friday newspapers - with Beckham's face covering the 25 and bull.
FourFourTwo at least went for something more light-hearted - using technology to see what Beckham could look like in 2020. The 'prediction' was comfortably wide of the mark.
In the altered image, a 45-year-old Beckham had lost several teeth and had a quickly-receding hairline, as well as grey hair - a much different look to how he actually looked back in 2020.
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Even Beckham's eyebrows were not particularly on-point - though you maybe wouldn't expect 1998 technology to be able to predict the future popularity of eyebrow clinics.
What do you think of FourFourTwo's prediction of Beckham's future face? Let us know in the comments below.