I’m delighted when Scotland qualify either for the World Cup or the European Championship. I always take a vested interest in Scotland’s result, and it creates the opportunity for a drink in our house when they do well.
I remember watching David Beckham scoring that free-kick at Old Trafford to take England to a World Cup. Things like that stick with you. I was at Southsea, waiting to board a hovercraft for the Isle of Wight. We ended up missing it because we were more interested in watching the big screen.
If I get annoyed because I’m not in the headlines and don’t do well in training, I won’t do well if I have to go in. I’ve to be prepared because the World Cup isn’t easy.
Becoming captain of the World Cup team and winning it is something I can’t express in words.
To me, it’s just another game of football – 11 players, a grass pitch. Regardless what shirt I have on, it’s important you win the game, and I’m competitive as anyone, and I want to win every game, whether it’s a Sunday league game, a five-a-side tournament, or a World Cup qualifier.
The best day of my career was probably winning the World Cup!
For any cricketer, the ultimate dream is to be a World Cup champion. My dream is to win the World Cup for India.
I think 1GOAL is so important. I’m proud that we could make education for all the legacy of Africa’s first World Cup.
In 1992, I was part of the Test team and played the Tri-series too. But, I missed the World Cup after being left out of the squad since I was fairly young.
During events like the World Cup and the Olympics, I tend to get really wrapped up in my own experience to stay focused, but it’s like a bubble. I don’t see much outside my own perspective.
A World Cup without Argentina isn’t good.
It would be cool to win a World Cup, and I think it would be good for my career as well.
I loved getting messages from people saying they were watching during the World Cup with their son or daughter, and they could see they could be involved, too. That was so powerful.
I was a very happy but quite solitary kid. I spent hours playing on my own, mainly with toy soldiers, and played entire World Cup football tournaments in the garden with commentary in my head.
Nobody’s going to give you the World Cup; nobody’s going to give you an easy game – not Scotland, not Argentina, not Japan, and not whoever we get going forward.
I was an attacking full-back but was told by Hope Powell to just sit back when we played U.S.A. in the 2007 World Cup. It’s hard to rein yourself in, but the team comes first.
Obviously, once you’ve won a World Cup, your mentality and responsibilities change. I’m not saying we now feel superior every time we play. But we do believe that, with our way of playing, we can achieve great things. We absolutely want to win it, as doing so would mean this generation has won every title possible.
At a World Cup it’s hard to look much further than the traditional big-name teams: history backs that up.
You win the World Cup, you’re just flying.
There’s no better way for me to end my time with the German team than by winning the World Cup.
The most important thing is qualifying for the World Cup.
The message to all Brazilians is that talent alone does not win the World Cup, it’s about working hard.
After the World Cup, the next two or three days there is a lot of celebration, a lot of obligation, towards the country, towards the French Federation, towards the fans. And then, after that, you feel so empty – mentally and physically. It’s a long tournament; it demands a lot of energy and a lot of emotion.
Football is my priority. It’s a short career, and you have to make the most of it, which is why making the World Cup squad is such a big deal and something I will never take for granted.
After winning the World Cup and the European Footballer of the Year award too, I do not think I can ask for anything else.
I like English football, always have. It’s just that people go on about the World Cup in 1986 and then I’m seen as the real bad boy.
To be honest, I was never expecting to be in a World Cup final, a Euro final, a Champions League final, a Europa League final. I’ve done much more than I dreamt, and that’s incredible.
You know, when you are the Italian national team, all the time you need to win because for our history, it is important for us to try to win the World Cup.
The Premier League and the World Cup are equally important to me.
This is the whole reason you play: to win your country a World Cup!
I remember, before the 2003 World Cup, I worked extremely hard on my fitness. A great deal of training and dietary discipline. I believe I lost 19 kg. And 19 is the number of runs I scored in the entire tournament.
Only when I saw I could be the first one to win five world cup races in a row did I get some extra motivation to go for it. And after winning five, I said to myself, ‘Why not win them all?’ The icing on the cake was the World Championship at the end.
Winning the World Cup was a dream of all Brazilians.
It was a dream to play the World Cup and I will play for sure in the future.
Things went so quickly from being a sub in Lille to scoring in the World Cup to signing for Liverpool, but I always had good advice from my parents and my religion to help keep me grounded.
In the World Cup, much depends for every team on how it develops during the tournament. There are always rising tensions. They come from within, and they come from the media.
I think I have had my story with France. Unfortunately, it’s not the story I would have liked. I would have liked to have played a World Cup; I would have liked to have done a lot more for the French national team.
Personal vanity has no place in a World Cup.
Since I was fifteen years of age, I have been wanting to go to the football World Cup.
The crowd is wonderful. There is always a superb atmosphere in the finish area. It’s good for the World Cup. I missed it a lot when I had to rest and it’s so nice to be back here.
This whole quest to win the 2019 World Cup, that was my job when I was director of England cricket.
You need superhuman performances at the World Cup.
I have a trophy room in my home and at the center is the replica of the World Cup.
Everybody wants to be in the World Cup.
And then ’74 as I mentioned and then the 1990 world cup was our team was the team of the reunification you know, so we were the team for both sides of Germany so now, you know throughout the last 16 years, we’ve melted together. And now comes the next milestone.
Sooner or later, an African team will win the World Cup.
For Spain, the more I play, the more goals I score, the more chance I have of making the World Cup and starting games.
I can still remember watching Italy win the 1982 World Cup. I was just an eight-year-old kid in Naples, my hometown, watching the games with a bunch of people in the houses of relatives and friends. I can recall that when Italy scored, we would shout and hug, even though we did not all know each other.
When you have someone who’s been there and done it at the highest level, at a World Cup, you have to respect him.
I don’t know about the 2026 World Cup. But I would love to see Anirudh Thapa sending a cross to Jhingan and I would love to watch it from the stands.
I am not thinking about World Cup and all those things. You can’t play freely if you start thinking like that.
It is well documented that I am a lifelong football fan. My love of the British game started with the 1966 World Cup.
To speak of Mexico ’86, I can make it short and speak only of Maradona. I never saw a player who dominated a World Cup like he did in ’86.
You meet somebody on a bus or something, and they say, ‘Thank you for the World Cup; it was so good to see,’ and stuff like this – it’s funny.
I did everything, except win a World Cup.
The World Cup tournament overall and, naturally, the new stadiums at its heart, are the ideal platform to portray Germany as a positive and exceptional location, and above all of course, as a highly capable economic location.
I’m the only player in history to have played in three consecutive World Cup finals.
This is something I’ve wanted to do my whole life, to play in a World Cup, to play in a World Cup final and win the World Cup.
I don’t personally think of myself as an icon, but it’s definitely an incredible thing. Scoring 16 goals at the World Cup is something you only usually dream about.
During the 2011 World Cup, I was sitting at the Wankhede Stadium when India won.
Cameroon can win the World Cup. People think I am crazy when I say this, but if you believe you have the best team in the world, you are stronger.
Having played in U.S.A. in 1994, in France in 1998, as well as the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan – the first on the Asian continent – I have witnessed the excitement and passion unleashed in those different parts of the world.
I had my chance in the World Cup Final and, wow, it was the opportunity I needed to show the whole world what I was capable of.
The toughest part of my career was at the 2011 World Cup and 2012 Olympics and wanting so much to play and physically contribute – but having to understand and realize that it’s just not my time.
Every rugby player in Australia and New Zealand or wherever they are from wants to play in the World Cup, and I am no different.
