Not that that makes it feel any better - it does in time, though, especially when you watch it back 30 years later. And even though it was massively disappointing, we left there with our heads held high, not feeling like we had let ourselves down. We came in off the back of two extra-times, we had a day less than Germany, nobody really gave us much of a chance. That was a very, very strong Germany side. I didn't get many touches, as strikers don't. But actually I held the ball up reasonably well, brought people into the game. I only ever remember the goals: if I score, it's great if I don't, I don't. I played really well, actually - I was really surprised. It is one the most remembered games in England, too, because of : his card, the tears, the reaction, for everything. Germany had a lucky first goal and we had a really brilliantly finished goal. I only watched it back in its entirety a couple of years ago for the first time and actually we played quite well.
Lineker: That game was one of the best games we have had with England in a World Cup. ĮSPN: What do you remember from the semifinal in 1990? Lineker: Well it was half serious because it was after 1990, so it was slightly personal. It's really open.ĮSPN: If that line was half a joke, that means it was half serious. The two South Americans have looked probably the strongest of anyone but a South American team haven't won it for 20 years. England have got a chance but are a bit short at the back. Spain? A work in progress, they're young but I thought they were great in the Euros so they have got to have a chance. After that, Germany will have to have a chance, although goal-scoring-wise they have not got, but then France have won a World cup without a centre-forward. Kylian Mbappe and who he is falling out with next. They have issues: Paul Pogba, N'Golo Kante, injured. This World Cup there is no obvious favourite.įrance either win it or implode. Lineker: It was obviously half a joke because they don't win every World Cup, but it's always a possibility. World Cup 2022: News and features | Schedule | Squads Or maybe it was something for the cover or something, I'm not so sure now, but that's where it came from - and it grew from there so someone must have read the book. He just wanted something pithy and short. But do you know the context? Where it came from? It was just before the '94 World Cup and Pete Davies was writing a book trying to explain football to Americans and asked me to write the foreword and that's what I wrote. Like the tweets, it's just like trying to put a different angle on things, really. It's a quote that didn't feel particularly clever at the time - a bit like most of my tweets. I would definitely have done it! It's really nice that people remember me for that and it's not like it's a line where I have let myself down. Why would you?! And yet now I get asked about it all the time, especially in Germany.ĮSPN: Would you have not done it if you had realised how big it would become, how it would end up following you around? That's very kind of you but when I said it, I never envisaged that it would become any kind of famous quote. That Shakespeare of football! I quite like that. It's what Lineker does often, in fact, as he looks back over a career in the game and outside it too, and forward to the World Cup that is just a week away.Įditor's note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.ĮSPN: "Football is a simple game: 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and in the end the Germans always win." Your most famous line is almost Shakespearean. That is exactly what the man who won the Golden Boot at the 1986 World Cup and got 10 goals across two tournaments, scorer of 48 goals for his country, is doing now.
As the folded-back pages revealed, that had been the favourite, and now everybody was falling about. Robson went straight to 1966 and to the war, and the room erupted. The squad didn't have to wait long for a winner. What lines, the players asked themselves, would then-manager Bobby Robson use in his prematch team talk? Lineker had scrawled some of them on the giant sheets of paper on the flip-board in the meeting room at the hotel, each with their odds, before folding the first, blank sheet back over the top of them to keep their coach from discovering what they were up to. He was playing the role of the team bookmaker and the bets were in. ® SEAHAWKS, SEAHAWKS LOGO, SPIRIT OF 12, WE ARE 12, BRING ON THE 12, LEGION OF BOOM, 12 and 12S are trademarks of the Seattle Seahawks.Gary Lineker is laughing, remembering the day before England faced Germany many years ago now.
0 kommentar(er)
