Gary Lineker is laughing, remembering the day before England faced Germany many years ago now. He was playing the role of the team bookmaker and the bets were in. 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.
The squad didn't have to wait long for a winner. Long? They didn't have to wait at all.
Robson went straight to 1966 and to the war, and the room erupted. As the folded-back pages revealed, that had been the favourite, and now everybody was falling about.
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. 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.
Editor's note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
ESPN: "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.
Lineker: Shakespeare? Oh! Oh, thank you. That Shakespeare of football! [Laughs] I quite like that. There's your headline. [Laughs] That's very kind of you but when I said it, I never envisaged that it would become any kind of famous quote. Why would you?! And yet now I get asked about it all the time, especially in Germany.
ESPN: Would you have not done it if you had realised how big it would become, how it would end up following you around?
Lineker: No. I would definitely have done it! [Laughs] 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. It's a quote that didn't feel particularly clever at the time -- a bit like most of my tweets. Like the tweets, it's just like trying to put a different angle on things, really. 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.
ESPN: Just one line?
Lineker: That was it. He just wanted something pithy and short. 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.
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ESPN: Do you still believe that?
Lineker: It was obviously half a joke because they don't win every World Cup, but it's always a possibility. This World Cup there is no obvious favourite.
France either win it or implode. They have issues: Paul Pogba, N'Golo Kante, injured. Kylian Mbappe and who he is falling out with next. After that, Germany will have to have a chance, although goal-scoring-wise they have not got [a striker], but then France have won a World cup without a centre-forward. 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. England have got a chance but are a bit short at the back. The two South Americans have looked probably the strongest of anyone but a South American team haven't won it for 20 years. It's really open.
ESPN: If that line was half a joke, that means it was half serious ...
Lineker: Well it was half serious because it was after 1990, so it was slightly personal. [Laughs]
ESPN: What do you remember from the semifinal in 1990?
Lineker: That game was one of the best games we have had with England in a World Cup. We ran Germany really close. I only watched it back in its entirety a couple of years ago for the first time and actually we played quite well. There wasn't a lot in it. Germany had a lucky first goal and we had a really brilliantly finished goal. It is one the most remembered games in England, too, because of [Paul Gascoigne]: his card, the tears, the reaction, for everything.
I played really well, actually -- I was really surprised [Laughs]. I only ever remember the goals: if I score, it's great; if I don't, I don't [remember]. But actually I held the ball up reasonably well, brought people into the game. I didn't get many touches, as strikers don't.
That was a very, very strong Germany side. We came in off the back of two extra-times, we had a day less [to prepare] than Germany, nobody really gave us much of a chance. And even though it was massively disappointing, we left there with our heads held high, not feeling like we had let ourselves down. Not that that makes it feel any better -- it does in time, though, especially when you watch it back 30 years later. I watched it with Jurgen Klinsmann. He had a really poor game. [Laughs]
ESPN: Did you tell him that?!
Lineker: He told me. He's very modest. Des Walker was brilliant on him.
ESPN: When it comes to footballing phrases, there may be none quite like Maradona invoking the Hand of God.
Lineker: There was a time when I thought to myself that it was really bloody clever of Diego to have thought of that: it is a hell of a line. His whole line, not just "it was the hand of God" but it being partly the head of Maradona and the hand of God. Credit where it's due. You can't be that good a footballer and not be intelligent. I know he has had his issues, but you can't play like he did without being smart.
It's the same with Lionel Messi. You have to be intelligent, especially the spatial awareness. Messi and Maradona are the ones that stand out for me because they play the game like they're watching from above and can see everything on the pitch and know exactly what to do in every given moment, which for mere mortals is just not a thing [we can do]. You find me someone with Messi's spatial awareness. Anywhere. Ever. And that in itself is a form of intelligence, to understand what is going on around [them]. I remember watching a game at the Camp Nou, really high up. I was sitting with Rio Ferdinand and Messi saw this pass that we didn't see from all the way up there, looking down, with that perspective. He sees it at ground level. And you think to yourself: "What kind of brain has he got?" It is like [Gascoigne]: he was daft, but he was smart. He was like a clown, but not stupid.
ESPN: Does Messi need a World Cup win? There's this idea of him having failed at international level.
Lineker: Ha!
ESPN: If England reached three finals in a row, it would be the greatest generation they ever had -- even if they lost all three ...
Lineker: And Messi's now put that right with the Copa America anyway. But you also have to remember that when Argentina played Germany in the final in 1986, Maradona sticks Jorge Burruchaga through. One on one and he scores. And they win in extra-time. When Messi played in the World Cup final, he stuck Gonzalo Higuain through and he missed a sitter. If Higuain scores, they win the World Cup. It's still a team sport. You can't judge a player on that -- it's ridiculous.
ESPN: Have you ever been in a position where you have missed a chance and you have felt bad for the guy who has given you the ball?
Lineker: No.
ESPN: Why not?
Lineker: I just feel bad about myself.
ESPN: It's just that you sometimes wonder if Higuain carries round the weight of that miss.
Lineker: If I did that in a World Cup final, yes, I would. Absolutely. If that's your chance in a final and it's a one on one and you miss it, I think it would live with you forever. I have sort of had that in the Argentina game in 1986, with the second header. I headed it and it hit the back of Julio Olarticoechea's head and didn't go in. I still think to this day: "if, if, if ..." I don't blame myself, it wasn't like a sitter, but it stays there.
ESPN: Is that harder to accept than Maradona cheating?
Lineker: I should have punched it in, but it wouldn't have crossed my mind to do it.
ESPN: Why not?
Lineker: Because it just wouldn't. I think Diego had done it before. And when you go to Argentina, they love that goal almost as much as the other one because for them that's like trickery, sorcery, cleverness, skullduggery.
ESPN: His teammates say that Maradona had trained it.
Lineker: Amazing. Fair play, Diego! It wouldn't surprise me because it was so clever. You could hardly see it. I never blamed him; I blamed the referee for not seeing it. And the linesman who definitely did see it, just bottled it. He even says so himself. He wrote a book and admitted it. He said, "I thought he had handballed it but didn't feel strong enough to overrule the referee."
ESPN: You've spoken to Maradona about it ...
Lineker: Yeah, I did two documentaries with him. Well, one proper documentary and one where he didn't show up. [Laughs]
We ended up chasing him around Argentina and eventually I played golf with the former Argentinian president Carlos Menem. We were doing this film about Golden Boot winners, so we had done Mario Kempes and we were halfway around the course and he said to me: "Have you not interviewed Diego?" I said: "I'm supposed to be but we can't get hold of him." He said: "I'll call him for you now." And he called him, right there on the golf course: "Yes, yes, yes, Diego. Gary's here." He put me on and I spoke to Diego and he said: "Yeah I'll do it for you, we'll work out a time."
This is absolutely true, right: I was in bed and I got a call at about 1, 2 in the morning. And it's Menem and he says: "Diego can see you at this club at an hour and half's time." So like at 3 a.m. And I just said: "I will do my best," and I went back to sleep. I thought: "I'm not going to chase him around a nightclub, there's no way this will actually happen." [Laughs] Can you imagine?
ESPN: I can imagine it being the best night out ever.
Lineker: Now I regret not going!
ESPN: Tell us about Maradona's second goal
Lineker: I remember watching it so clearly. If we had VAR that would have been disallowed, you know. There's a tackle just before he gets it on Glenn Hoddle. Unbelievable. But anyway, that's by the by.
I remember my jaw dropped watching him do what he was doing, and on a pitch that was like a cabbage patch -- it was awful. You know when you relay turf and there are little squares everywhere? Every time you put your foot down, they slide away. ... When he scored, it was the only time in my whole career that I thought I should applaud, it was that good. I didn't, obviously, because I would get killed at home, but it was unbelievable. Unbelievable. I argued with my mates a couple of weeks ago: is that the most famous game of all time in the world? I think it is. I don't know what else it could be.
ESPN: Maybe Brazil-Italy in 1982?
Lineker: Yeah, that was the other one we talked about. And it is amazing, but even that -- and it was an incredible football match and I would put it No. 2 -- but it didn't have the Hand of God and the best goal ever scored in the same match. In England, you might say '66 or 1990, but if you're talking about a game that the whole world would remember, it's the Hand of God and the best goal ever. It's Argentina-England, it's a World Cup, a quarterfinal, post Falklands. I just don't know what would come close. Zinedine Zidane's head-butt? But the game? People only remember the head-butt. People remember the game, the [attempted England] comeback. The only thing no one remembers is who scored the England goal! [Laughs]
ESPN: That goal ensured that you were top scorer in 1986.
Lineker: The first goal against Poland at the '86 World Cup changed my life. I had gone about five games without a goal for England and I didn't think Bobby Robson would keep me in the team because we'd lost the first game to Portugal 1-0 and we drew 0-0 with Morocco. I played with Mark Hateley. I thought Robson would bring Peter Beardsley in and leave me out. We never played two short centre-forwards with England. He did bring in Beardsley and it transformed things. He kept me in, too.
The first against Poland changes everything for me. It's not the greatest goal -- I didn't score many great goals -- but I score one, then another, hat trick, another two follow [against Paraguay], then one against Argentina, I win the Golden Boot, I transfer [to Barcelona]. That's life-changing. Without that first goal, does any of the rest happen? Probably not.
Barry Davies in commentary says: "Lineker passes when he might have gone straight on" and I thought: "Anyone who has seen me play knows I can't take anyone on, so of course I passed it!" Always better to get it wide, make the winger give it back, and get into the box myself to get the return. I saw Erling Haaland do it recently, it was a perfect example. He played it just wide enough that the winger can't shoot himself and has no choice but to give it back.
ESPN: That's deliberate?
Lineker: Oh, 100% yeah! You can't have some winger shooting when he's not likely to score. Just push it far enough forward or far enough wide so he can't shoot, then you go like that [Lineker points to where he wants return pass]. He did it, it was beautiful. Ian Wright did it, Alan Shearer did it, we all did it. Make sure they can't shoot! Absolutely. It's selfish in a way but it's much more effective the striker finishing the move than some winger.