Lineker interviews Matthew on the BBC .......... DEDICATED FOLLOWER OF SHILTON The BBC interview took place on 30th June, three days before the quarter-final with Argentina. It is reproduced below with their kind permission. Gary Lineker: Matthew, thanks for coming in to speak to us. Within the camp, do the players have a sense of the level of anticipation that there is back home following the Germany game? MN: Although we’re a little bit cut off from it all, as England fans ourselves we can imagine what it’s like – what we’d be like, basically. Plus we’ve seen the news reports with the St. George’s flags on cars, houses, pubs and all the rest, and it’s great that everyone’s so excited. I hope everyone’s enjoying the ride so far, but there’s plenty more to come yet, believe me. GL: When some players make that type of statement it can sound a bit arrogant, but you really mean it don’t you? MN: I do, Gaz. I hope that doesn’t come across as arrogant, but I think we are going to win the World Cup. I said that before the tournament started and I haven’t changed my opinion. The last half an hour against Germany showed the real England, and I don’t think anyone will look forward to playing against us now. GL: What pleased you most about the Germany game? MN: As I said, I think you saw the real England for the first time in the tournament. That combination of an ‘in your face’ attitude and a huge amount of skill and technique, and that can only come from having a top-class squad which is totally unified. I also think you could see that everyone now really gets what Fabio wants from the team, which is a high tempo pressing game – as far up the pitch as possible - quick, incisive one-touch passing and being really offensive when we’re in possession. When it clicks into place it seems obvious, but it takes a while to get it right in a tournament context. We’ve got a picture of what it looks like now in an actual game, and just need to keep doing that in the remaining games. But I’m sure Argentina will be making their own plans to deal with us. GL: I want to talk for a minute about your winning goal. It was a brilliant piece of technique, getting the ball to swerve like that – despite your earlier comments about the Jabulani! MN: Thanks, Garfield. I think we’ll call that a Jimmy Anderson-inspired effort. GL: How do you mean? MN: Well, the ball was nearly ninety minutes old and was starting to take a bit of reverse swing. The Germans wouldn’t know anything about that, so I thought I’d use it to our advantage. GL: Ha ha ha, brilliant. I take it you are a cricket fan as well? MN: Of course. Football, cricket, rugby, the holy trinity of English sport. I remember me and my Mum jumping around the living room when we won the 2005 Ashes. GL: I take it she liked her cricket as well then? MN: No, she just had a deep loathing of Australians. Just kidding Ricky, if you’re watching, she loved her cricket. She followed it a lot more closely than me, in fact. GL: On a personal level, how do you react when people compare the impact you’re having to Pele in the 1958 World Cup? Does it add extra pressure? MN: No, not really. I place high expectations on myself and know what I’m capable of achieving and don’t really get affected by the external stuff. Plus football isn’t an individual sport like tennis or golf, so I only really think about my performance in a team context. The comparison with Pele is very flattering but also a bit ridiculous: if I play like this for another five years I might just about qualify to carry his Viagra. By the way, I want to make it absolutely clear that I don’t have any problems downstairs, if you know what I’m saying [he winks]. GL: I think we’d better not go there, especially after your recent press. MN: That’s probably a good shout. GL: Moving swiftly on then, I’ve been a part of England camps in the past and always found that we performed best when there’s a good atmosphere in the squad, when everyone’s happy, when there’s a lot of banter. Like lots of people, I’ve been avidly following your little chats with Stuart Davies on the FA website and get the sense that there’s a lot of laughter in the squad. How would you describe the atmosphere? MN: It’s brilliant. There’s a huge amount of laughter and nobody’s above having the mickey taken out of them, no egos on show or anything like that. I smiled to myself when I heard this. After recent events I admired his ability to say this without a hint of irony. GL: A little bird tells me you’re at the centre of a lot of it? MN: I suppose so, which is very strange. I’m normally quite a solitary person by choice, but the forced confinement of a World cup squad seems to have brought out an extrovert side of me that I didn’t know I had. Don’t worry though, after the tournament I’ll go back to being prickly and difficult. GL: Can you give the viewers an insight into the sort of things that the Squad get up to, bearing in mind this is a family show? MN: No problem, Garavaggio. Well, for starters we’ve formed a P.G. Wodehouse reading circle, which is rather lovely. That was John Terry’s suggestion. It’s amazing what you learn about people when you take the time. His impression of Tuppy Glossop is uncanny. We got cravats made all special like. Plus all the usual stuff. The latest discussion is about goal celebrations. I’m not normally into those things, but we’ve been watching a lot of classic comedy on DvD and there’s an idea cutting about the Squad that we should organise our goal celebrations around a tribute to British light entertainment. GL (laughing): Such as? MN: Well, Crouchy likes throwing shapes and is up for a David Brent ‘eh eh eh eh eh’ dance with his arms everywhere. You know the one I mean? Joe Cole loves his game shows and has volunteered to give us a little ‘Brucey Bonus’ with the elbow on the knee kicking his leg in the air thing. The skipper [Steven Gerrard], who’s a big Del Boy fan, fancies doing the ‘Keep it Nice and Cool Trigg,’ manoeuvre, you know, falling through the hatch in the bar. Stuff like that, that our fans could relate to. There are others, but I can’t remember them just now. I’m just glad nobody suggested doing a Basil Fawlty before the Germany game. I’ve had enough controversy for the time being. GL: Ha ha ha. What about you? MN: Me? I quite fancy a bit of the Morecambe and Wise ‘hands behind the head’ dance. That would be a perfect way to celebrate scoring the winning goal in a World Cup final. Then the whole team could do a Benny Hill-style speeded-up chase, culminating in an enormous piley-on finale. There must be loads of others. Suggestions care of the BBC please. GL: Wonderful. I’ll keep you to that. Turning to the Argentina game, what are you expecting that to be like? MN: It’s Argentina, so I think the passion and adrenaline will take care of itself, given the history between the two countries. I don’t need to tell you that, but it’s really important that we put all that to one side and just treat it as a World Cup quarter final against a very talented team. They haven’t played as well as they would have wanted so will be looking to up their game, so we’re preparing for a considerable challenge. GL: You’re still very young, so how much does the football history between the countries mean to you? MN: Obviously I wasn’t around for a lot of it, but I’ve always been passionate about England – that comes from my Uncles – and I’ve done a huge amount of reading about the history of the National side, so I’m well aware what’s gone on in the past, including when old gits like you were playing. I was at the game in St. Etienne when they knocked us out on penalties in 1998, and I can remember how much I cried afterwards. I was only five, but it definitely hurt. We played brilliantly and deserved to win, but things didn’t go our way. It wasn’t just down to Becks being a silly twat. I’ve also watched a re-run of the ‘Hand of God’ game from ’86 with my Dad and uncles, and judging by their reaction they still feel pretty angry about it. Me saying that Argentina were the better team on the day didn’t help, but it’s true. Terry Butcher comes from the same town as me and I know from speaking to him that he feels England and Argentina still have unfinished business in the knockout stages of a World Cup. You know him much better than me Gareth, so I’m sure you can imagine what he was like talking about it! GL: Indeed I can. There’s a good few veterans from that match who still feel very strongly about it. MN: I’m sure there are. We’re determined to do the business. Besides, it’s time England stopped being a quarter final team. We don’t just want to win this game, we want to dominate the match and win it convincingly. As I’ve said already, we’re going to win the World Cup, so it stands to reason that we have to win this match first. GL: Well Matthew, that’s been enthralling. On behalf of the entire nation can I just say that we will all be rooting for you. Very best of luck. MN: Thanks. Thank you. And everyone at home, stop worrying. Stephen Fry Simon Mayo Drivetime Daily Telegraph Danny Baker on 5Live Soccer AM talkSPORT Andrew Flintoff BBC Radio 2 BBC Sport Sportsworld BBC WORLD SERVICE ITV4 Daily Express James Corden A League Of Their Own England Football Team England Football Fans David Beckham The Beatles The Guardian FIFA World Cup The Football Association BILD Sport Süddeutsche Zeitung
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 20:18:28 +0000
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