Southampton vs Sheffield Wednesday

10 / saints
but having said all that
it was a mad experience
for a family and for
myself being part of it.”
At the time of the callup,
of course, Walcott
felt like the luckiest boy
on the planet, but the
reality of that German
summer did not follow
the fairy-tale script.
“It’s weird, because I was
just going there to play
football,” he says. “That’s
all I knew, that’s all I
wanted to do, and then
not to get a chance to
play as well when thinking
I might play in the last
game – the Portugal
one – when we went to
penalties, that’s when I
thought ‘I might actually
come on here’, just for
something different,
but it never happened,
which is a bit of a shame,
but it’s just one thing
I had to live with. “
I’ve got a video
documentary of me
filming myself and the
whole thing that I’ve
kept as a keepsake
at home, so it’s quite
an interesting watch,
but I look really young,
really young – very out
of my depth, shall we
just say.”
Perhaps the nature of his
headline-grabbing arrival
on the world stage means
Walcott’s achievements
in the years that followed
lack the recognition
they deserve.
Not only a long-standing
member of the England
squad, the winger became
his country’s youngest
hat-trick scorer at 18 and
scored more than 100
goals for Arsenal, where
he won the FA Cup three
times in more than a
decade at one of Europe’s
leading clubs.
“The team
we’re playing,
Middlesbrough,
are like, ‘wow…
this guy’s
nearly 34,
he shouldn’t
be running
rings around
us.’ That’s the
standard you
need to set.”