This image shows Victoria and David Beckham on the cover of W magazine's August 2007 issue. The photographer Steven Klein took the portraits for W magazine. He said David Beckham was "completely at ease with his masculinity, his femininity, his sexuality." A FASHION ASPECT of Becks's recent interviews: “I’ve always had a liking toward clothes, but when I met Victoria, she directed me in the right way. When she tells me something doesn’t look good, I believe her. We have a connection that way.”

As expected, David Beckham is likely to be more worried in Los Angeles by such thing as TV ratings, rather than by the quality of his soccer game.

Reportedly, the first test of Beckham’s stateside popularity will come on July 21 when the sports channel ESPN broadcasts Beckham’s first match for Los Angeles Galaxy: a friendly against Chelsea at the Galaxy’s home ground with the capacity of 27,000.

The game is being promoted with a TV advertising campaign featuring a remake of the Beatles’Hello, Goodbye, suggesting that his arrival is similar to the coming of the Liverpool Four. This is accompanied by a Sports Illustrated cover story, advertising in USA Today and a one-hour documentary, David Beckham: New Beginnings.

Beckham’s crack team of advisors are doing everything in their power to keep his brand on maximum exposure: he will also appear with the National Football League star Reggie Bush in an advertising campaign for adidas, as well as a Motorola campaign designed to compete with Apple’s iPhone ads. But the odds are stacked against the player, in spite of his $250 million deal with Galaxy, which was greeted with bafflement in a country where “soccer” is mainly a sport for young girls. And now the question is being asked: will anyone tune in?

“American TV is an advertising-based model,” explained one Los Angeles TV executive, who did not want to be named. “All the revenues are based entirely on viewership figures. It’s all about the ratings.”

Men as mighty as Donald Trump fear the Neilsen-scan, and the pressure is on. Could Beckham survive an underwhelming opening?

When he played for Real Madrid in the Uefa Champions League, Beckham could expect to be watched by up to 80 million people. Viewing figures for Major League Soccer (MLS) – America’s main domestic football league – are almost impossible to find, because the audiences are so small they barely register. “Competitive hotdog eating typically gets more ratings than soccer,” said the TV executive. “But at least when you’ve got a zero rating, the only way is up.”

Victoria Beckham, meanwhile, will face her own trial-by-ratings on Monday when NBC broadcasts Victoria Beckham: Coming to America, which is being promoted as an hour-long reality TV special. The show has already been drastically cut back from the planned six-part series – although strong ratings could result in more material being commissioned.

In Los Angeles, TV executives are sceptical. “In England, you’d at least have millions of people watching,” said one. “In America, that’s not going to happen. But who knows? Maybe they’ll think Posh is a member of the aristocracy.”

"I think people are really going to see me for the first time,” Victoria Beckham tells the magazine. “I think they have this impression that I’m this miserable cow who doesn’t smile. But I’m actually quite the opposite.”

The couple, who were married in September 1999, got together in 1997 after meeting at a soccer game in London.  “I didn’t really know who he was,” she says. “He was always with his mom, dad and sister while a lot of the footballers were at the bar getting drunk. I could sense right from the start that David was a gentleman, and very family oriented, which is important because I’m the same.”

They also connect on a sartorial level. “I’ve always had a liking toward clothes, but when I met Victoria, she directed me in the right way,” he says. “When she tells me something doesn’t look good, I believe her. We have a connection that way.”

Other than the recently announced Spice Girls reunion tour, Beckham has denied she’s planning to resurrect her showbiz career. The Spice Girls tour is set to open Dec. 7 in Los Angeles, reuniting the five-member girl group that sold millions of records in the 1990s before breaking up in 2001.