I COULDN’T DISGUISE MY PASSION World Cup pub trip was real eye-opener for Ox
The disguise failed to keep the identity of Liverpool’s injured star a secret for more than a few minutes. But, in that time, Oxlade-Chamberlain was amazed at how much the Three Lions mean to the supporters. Now back in the England fold for the first time since March
2018, he is keen to live up to the hero-worship. “I’ve never been to a pub where there’s a bunch of fans and watched it with them to see what it means to them,” he said. “I was shocked.
“It was a bit surreal that I could see my mates on the screen doing what I usually do, and how everyone was reacting and what it meant to them.
“I was almost idolising them as well. Just seeing the feelings it was creating around me, I was like ‘Oh my God, that’s Raheem Sterling. Look at what he’s done!
Do I really do that?’.”
The Liverpool midfielder was just watching the Belgium group-stage game, a somewhat meaningless affair England lost 1-0. Still, he said: “I realised, ‘s***, I’ve missed out on something big here, this is special’.
“Seeing what it meant to people rushing in from work, their shirts on, their ties, bringing their girlfriend who’s rushed in from the city as well. It was everyone, the nation’s people.”When he was chosen to narrate the video trumpeting the 150th anniversary of the FA in 2013, Oxlade-Chamberlain was seen as a poster boy, a generational icon to lead the Three Lions into the next 150 years.
However, injuries have restricted him to 32 appearances by the age of 26 – although given boss Gareth Southgate’s assertion that he would have been a World Cup starter, there is a fair chance he could add two more against Bulgaria tomorrow and Kosovo on Tuesday.
“I’ll worry about that when I’m 50 and I’ve got a big belly like my dad,” he said, referring to former England winger Mark Chamberlain.
“Then I’ll think, ‘What if? I could have done that’.
“I was doing special things at a young age and there is only a small minority who manage to kick on all
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the time and push on to be Lionel Messi, for example. “By 24, I wanted to have won the Champions League and be scoring 10-15 goals a season. But it hasn’t all been roses for me, for sure.
“What I went through with my knee and how it felt in the first three weeks when I could not walk, I could not trust it anymore.”
With the latter stages of Euro 2020 scheduled to take place at Wembley, former Arsenal star OxladeChamberlain believes he still has time to become an English icon.
“It’s written in the stars for me to score the winner,” he said. You are immediately aware that he is only half-joking.