The soccer star – who raises three sons, Brooklyn, 11, Romeo, seven, and five-year-old Cruz, with his singer-turned-designer wife Victoria Beckham – loves playing with the toy bricks and admits it would have been great to turn his hobby into a career.

He said: ‘What would I like to do if I wasn’t a footballer? I love drawing cartoons and building Lego with my sons.

‘This is going to make me sound really weird but when I was in Milan I had such a big amount of spare time. I found online that you can buy a Lego model of the Taj Mahal so I bought it and started building it, I only built some of it because I got injured halfway through.

‘I know it’s not a career but I love doing it and would like to be a professional Lego builder. My boys are the same, they’re obsessed with it.’

However, the 35-year-old star will always be very grateful for his sporting career because of the opportunities and lifestyle it has provided him and his family.