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Gary Lineker interviewed by “El Lobo” Carrasco Gary Lineker who was in Barcelona this week to pick up a couple of career recognition awards also took the time to do an interview with one of his ex-colleagues and very good friend at Barça, Francisco José “El Lobo” Carrasco. The truth is that Gary Lineker travels to Barcelona various times during the year with his family where he has a house and attends as many Barcelona games as is possible due to his work commitments as a presenter for both the BBC and BT Sports. Gary Lineker never pulls any punches and is always straight forward with his opinions as everyone knows, especially on social media where he’s very active. So the interview contains quite a few headliners as is per usual with Lineker. It’s 30 years since you left Barça after 4 years at the club. What memories do you have of your period during those years as a player? “How time flies. My best memories as a footballer are all situated at Barcelona and it was the greatest experience I had by playing for the greatest club in the world. My first three years were excellent although my final year wasn’t as good but the fans always loved me and continue to do so.” You were formed as a footballer at Leicester City “And nobody outside the UK had even heard of Leicester City when I played there. Winning the Premier League has put them on the world football map forever. From Leicester I went to Everton and from there to the Mexico World Cup in 1986.” You had a pretty good World Cup in 86 “Yeah, I scored a few goals.” Only Maradona had a better World Cup than you “Indeed, but I scored more goals than him and today that would’ve won me the Ballon d’Or (Laughter). Then I arrived in Barcelona.” You’ve always been a centre-forward. When did you detect that you were different in that way to the rest of your colleagues? “As a youth player my coaches soon told me that I didn’t have the talent to dribble and take on players naturally but that I was very intelligent at detecting where to position myself between defenders and was cold without nerves at receiving the ball between players bigger than me. That part came natural to me and wasn’t taught where as far as they were concerned were the attributes needed to form a centre forward and that’s how it all started.” I think you’re the only player I know of that has never been issued a yellow card let alone a red. Is this true? “Yes, as far as I know I’m the only one and one of my colleagues and great friends at Leicester who had a great career later on at Arsenal almost finished his career without a booking, Alan Smith... But he got one in the end and I beat him (laughter). I was always calm as a player and detected very early on that arguing with the referee which is the main reason strikers tend to be booked for was pointless. I just concentrated on getting that next chance to try and score and would forget about anything I perceived as an injustice from the referee almost instantly.” How do you see football these days with respects to how football was in our day? “A lot more pressure from all quarters which everyone that watched football back then and now will know about. But from a player’s perspective the biggest change are the pitches. Nowadays almost everywhere you play has great pitches and not like in our day where only the biggest clubs could afford to keep a pitch in pristine condition. A great surface helps footballers to be able to reproduce their talent.” Let’s get on to Barça. Everyone knows your sentiments towards the club “I consider myself a true Barcelona fan and so are my three sons... None of us were born in Spain and obviously I have a reason to feel the way I do because of having played there. But my children have all been brought up with the significance that club creates in your heart and we watch every single game and go to some when we can at the Camp Nou. Two of my sons are also Leicester City fans and one other seems to have been born confused and is a Man Utd fan (laughter).” Neymar departed and everyone thought Barcelona would suffer but they’ve returned to the top “Barça were more attacking motivated with Neymar and it looked like that was a big blow. But those that really know about football knew the team would be more balanced now which they are and thankfully they brought in a great coach in Ernesto Valverde. The moment he was appointed I knew he would balance things out. Now they play a sort of 4-4-2 to the naked eye although being Barça it’s not really a 4-4-2 and a lot more complicated than that which I won’t go into. But that has ironed out any defensive issues and then there’s Messi which is like playing with 13 players.” It’s probably a stupid question, but why are so fascinated with Messi because you are very vocal and public with your comments? “Messi can do four or five things in every game he plays that I didn’t do even once in any game throughout my career. He’s incredible and I doubt we’ll ever see anyone like him again because he isn’t a gymnasium product as he’s pure natural talent. He’s the only player that for me beats Maradona, he’s better than Maradona was.” I feel the same as you and I played for four years with Maradona. You arrived the following year after he went to Napoli but I know that pre-Messi for you Maradona had always been the greatest in the history of the game. What differentiates the two for you? “They’re kind of similar in many aspects but the biggest difference of all are the numbers with the two of them. Messi does it in practically every game he plays while Maradona didn’t always do it in all of his games. Messi dribbles, passses and scores in the same quality mannerisms Maradona did, But Messi has scored many more goals without even being a natural goal scorer or a striker. Messi has been and is the best player by a long margin ever since he became a main feature at Barcelona and we’re talking about over 13 years at the top and Maradona didn’t manage that. They say that Maradona won a World Cup and that Messi hasn’t, but Messi has won 4 Champions Leagues and Maradona didn’t win any European Cups. Put it this way, it’s something to debate and it’s one that I am willing to listen to where they feel Maradona was better than Messi, but that tells you that only Messi can reach a debate relating to Maradona because as I always say, playing with Messi in your team is like playing with 13 players in your side. You’ve seen Coutinho a lot at Liverpool. What do you think about the signing for Barcelona? “I love him, he’s a fantastic signing for Barcelona and one that you understand why Barcelona put so much effort into signing. Infact there have been more renowned names Barcelona have gone for in the recent past and didn’t put so much effort into signing them when it was being made difficult. He plays the Barcelona way and you can almost see in your mind’s eye how he will fit into their way of playing seamlessly.” The debate in Spain where Coutinho is concerned is what his best position will be at Barça? “His best position is what you guys in Spain call an interior left because in England we call anything that plays near the side of the pitch a winger (laughter). He can play in various positions in the attacking element of the midfield but that one for me is his best position.” But Iniesta plays there “Not a bad player to have playing there ey! (laughter). Indeed, but they can rotate as Iniesta plays out his final years.” Talk to me about Iniesta and Xavi “You mean Iniesta, Xavi and Busquets! They’re three of the greatest players of all time. A World Cup, European Championships, Champions Leagues, league titles, Copas del Rey and many other trophies. They’ve been the greatest midfielders of all time for me and very little comes close. I’ve always thought about that moment where Messi almost chose Spain over Argentina and what the Spain team would’ve been like... They would still be winning every international tournament today with the amount of talent Spain has at its disposal. But Messi playing for Spain with those three at international level would’ve been something unbelievable. That Barça side was special!” Leo has had a lot of problems while playing for Argentina “It’s clear Messi or anyone can’t play on their own. But Messi has practically played on his own for Argentina.” Cristiano Ronaldo has competed with Messi over a good part of his career. How would you describe Cristiano as a footballer? “Without a doubt he’ll go down as one of the best of all time and the second best of the last 10 years of Messi’s 13. All athletes notice age creeping up on them and in football this is also the case. He’s come down quite a bit but people still want to watch him and that’s what counts. He’s very professional and plays for the team. But he loves to score goals a lot more than I used to it seems and you notice this when one of his teammates scores and he doesn’t.” You never used to get upset “For sure... Whenever one of my teammates scored I felt it as mush as they did because we were searching for one thing in common which was to be victorious, but he seems to be obsessed with scoring and has forgotten about football. At times those gestures he makes when things aren’t going personally well for him but the team is doing well isn’t nice to see, but in the important moments up till now he’s nearly always been there.” Everyone knows you’re very active with social media and lately you’ve been very critical with Benzema in a controversial manner. Why? “Let’s get this right... I think Benzema is a top goal scorer. He plays well for the team and especially plays well for Cristiano (wink), but for me there are various other strikers in Europe that are better than him. I was criticised a lot for my comments on Benzema by the Madrid media and elements within the Madrid Camp, but I’m only talking about the art that I know, the art of a goal scorer.” Do you think England has the capacity to win the World Cup? “Not to win it, I can’t see that. But I can see us being more competitive than in recent international tournaments for a while. We’ve had Lampard and Gerrard but in the last 15 years we haven’t produced a great singular individual player apart from maybe Rooney. Now we’re getting better and have more competitive players such as Kane, Sterling and Delle Ali, all good players, and we’ve got some very good youngsters coming through that have won their respective international tournaments which in Spain you all know very well what that’s about and how important it is. It’s very early to say with them but I’m sure we’ll be better off than over the past decade. I think we can reach the quarter-finals but there are quite a few sides better than us.” Which ones for you? “Spain, France, Germany, Brazil and of course Argentina.” You rate France higher than Belgium? “Well they’ve got various top players like De Bruyne, Carrasco, Hazard and Vertongen. But there’s always a but with them isn’t there.” What do you think about Argentina? “They haven’t got a great team but if Sampaoli can get them organised, with Messi anything is possible, even the impossible.” Germany? “They’re always there.” What was it you famously said about Germany? “(laughter)... Yeah, football is a sport where 22 players play and Germany ends up winning. It was a joke I made in 1994.” Do you think it will be Messi’s last World Cup? “Hmmmm... Maybe! Who knows but what will football be without him. People in other leagues don’t take his existence on the football pitches presently seriously enough. Because they follow other teams in other leagues they don’t think it impacts them, but I guarantee you it does. But what can you do, when his time comes, that’ll be it and we’ll carry on.” Here in Spain we got to see how you reacted when Barcelona beat PSG 6-1 in the Champions League and Sergi Roberto scored that vital sixth goal. Those images of you going crazy I would think made it all over the world. How did you live that game? “Wow! That was one of those football moments that you rarely get but make football folklore. Nobody thought it could happen and even less than nobody thought it would after PSG scored that goal. I had Owen, Gerrard and Rio Ferdinand in the studio with me and even they went crazy because that’s what those football moments do to you, it’s something that only football can do in my opinion. The truth is that I must’ve affected them even more and those 3 goals in 6 minutes had me so pumped up that they were also euphoric.“ Which moment had you more pumped up. That game against PSG or seeing Leicester City win the Premier League? “There’s a difference. The 6-1 was a moment of explosion, a mythical football moment of utter disbelief. But Leicester City winning the Premier League is a miracle, it’s something you couldn’t write when the season started or any season in the English game as it is now. Even though seemingly impossible, Barcelona’s 6-1 being Barcelona at the Camp Nou is thinkable and poossible. Leicester winning the Premier League isn’t and if that season was to be repeated with everything identical coming into the final 10 games of the season, everyone would bet against Leicester doing it. That’s called a miracle!” Football is something special isn’t it? “Ignoring the fact we’ve both made a living out of having played the game, we have to say that it is indeed a phenomenon. It moves the masses, it can get people that in normal everyday circumstances are absolutely average people that go about their lives in a normal fashion without hardly ever getting flustered. But come the weekend or an international tournament, they turn into maniacs! (laughter)” @The Rebel CRS @Stan @Dan @Cicero @Spike @The Artful Dodger @Cannabis

Welcome to the forum @Perseus

thanks for clarifying

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