Netflix's latest sports documentary offering Beckham hit our screens on Wednesday afternoon.
The four-part series follows the career of English footballer David Beckham across his time in Manchester, Madrid, and LA, with a huge focus on his time with the English national team.
Naturally, the fiasco of the 1998 FIFA World Cup is one of the central stories of the entire piece, with most of the first two episodes dealing with Beckham's infamous sending off against Argentina in the last-16 game in Saint-Étienne.
The game saw Beckham kick out at Argentinean Diego Simeone after a tussle for the ball - when interviewed for the documentary, Simeone himself admits that Beckham should never have been sent off for the offence, petulant as it was.
Ultimately, England would lose the game on penalties, and Beckham spent the following season being abused by opposition fans from the terraces while representing Manchester United.
Aside from it arguably costing England a place in the World Cup quarter-finals, Beckham's red card was another in a string of contentious incidents between England and Argentina - both on and off the field.
That history is one that the Beckham Netflix documentary briefly explores - and, in doing so, we are treated to a surprise cameo from Irish commentary legend Jimmy Magee.
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Jimmy Magee has unexpected cameo in Beckham documentary
Jimmy Magee was the voice of the World Cup on Irish shores for decades, working on every tournament between 1966 and 2010 for RTÉ.
During that time, he became a beloved figure in Irish sport, and his commentaries away from soccer were just as iconic, providing immortal narration of similarly immortal Irish Olympic moments such as John Treacy's silver medal win in LA in 1984, and Katie Taylor's gold at London 2012.
Perhaps the piece of commentary he is best known for, though, is his simplest.
Just about every sports fan in the world has seen Diego Maradona's "goal of the century" against England at the 1986 FIFA World Cup and, if you hail from Ireland, there's a good chance you heard Jimmy Magee's commentary of the event - perfect in its simplicity:
Enrique to Maradana...
Different class. Different class!
When they talk about the great players of world championship football, this man will be on a pedestal!
With the release of Beckham on Netflix this week, we were pleasantly surprised to hear the above commentary play out during a montage of the infamous history between Argentina and England.
Alongside historic footage of the Falklands War, the 1986 match was used to contextualise the importance of David Beckham's red card against Argentina in '98 - and, unexpectedly, the filmmakers chose to use RTÉ and Jimmy Magee's narration of one of the most famous moments in football history.
It is a mark of how perfectly judged the commentary is, and how high an esteem that Magee is held in, that a commentary other than that of the English or Argentinean broadcasters was chosen for this moment.
The appearance of Magee is but fleeting, but it is nonetheless a heartwarming reminder of one of Ireland's finest sports broadcasters, as we remember the sixth anniversary of his death.
In fact, Beckham is not the first major international football documentary to use a clip of Jimmy Magee in recent years.
2019's excellent Diego Maradona by director Asif Kapadia used Magee's commentary when setting up Argentina's 1990 World Cup semi-final against Italy - a clip of the Italians' quarter-final victory against Ireland was used to contextualise their run to the last four.
Both are short clips, but are testament to just how special a voice Jimmy Magee was in the world of football commentary.
He was, after all, different class.
Featured image: Netflix/Sportsfile
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