Quotes About Family

There have been times when I've reflected on my international career and just thought: 'Well that was a massive waste of time.' Sorry for sounding sour, but my best mate, David Beckham, got butchered after the World Cup in 1998, then my brother, Phil, after Euro 2000.

I had my father on the Under-21 team and during the World Cup in France in 1998 - and also in AC Milan for four months. So it was a weird experience, because having your father as a coach is pretty weird, and I was the captain. But he was great.

I was lucky enough that my parents knew about World Cup skiing, so since I was really little, we were watching World Cup winning runs.

My first memory of the national team is the 1982 World Cup. I remember those days at our home or at my uncle's house, with all the family and those long dinners watching the matches. But I also remember that, during the games, I went outside or onto the balcony to play.

Til the day I didn't play under-19 World Cup, nobody ever celebrated my birthday. And the moment I played for Indian team, my family got excited and ordered and cut a cake for me in front of 40-50 family members.

Not many people can say their family has seen them play at a World Cup.

After 2012, I wanted to stop, but my father told me I had to play the World Cup. I tried to be good.

That's the most proud I have been: Seeing my family at the World Cup and them being able to watch me play and making them proud of me.

I thought it was really important for my son to come to a World Cup with my missus, who has been there for me from day one and supported me.

I know I played for England at a World Cup with millions and millions of people watching, but I still stick to my same routine - I train, then go home to see my wife and little boy.

Things went so quickly from being a sub in Lille to scoring in the World Cup to signing for Liverpool, but I always had good advice from my parents and my religion to help keep me grounded.

Obviously, everyone's journey is different, and we all have different ambitions and beliefs as kids as to whether we're actually going to be able to play in a World Cup and whether it can be a dream that can come true. For me and for my family, it's very surreal.

It's really exciting for me and my brothers to watch the World Cup.

My father who passed away told me that his dream is to watch me playing at a World Cup and I want to make my dad proud.

I want to win games, want to win championships. I want to go to the World Cup. I want to win a World Cup. I want to play in Champions League. I want to have fun throughout all of that, and I want my family to be a part of that through the entire path.

I can remember lacing up my boots ahead of my first cap against Japan in the 1995 World Cup in South Africa. I remember the changing room, the smell of the place, every last detail of how I warmed up, walking out onto the pitch, thinking how proud my parents would be. I was doing all I ever wanted to do.

To score a goal in front of my family and so many U.S. fans in the World Cup was just absolutely incredible.

It was my Dads dream for me to play for India. It was my dream to win a World Cup.

Mum is a photographer, and Dad does world music and plays almost every instrument except for drums.

I thought I had everything going for me. I wasn't listening to nobody. And my dad was like, 'Uh-uh, you can't make money from music. You have to be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer. Something that's going to do something for this world. Music doesn't do anything.' And I had to fight that, his passion, and fight the society that I was from.

When I was about to break a world record and become well known, my mother used to say that for her the important thing was for me to become a doctor - a career which had not been possible in her generation and in her society. Sport was something to be set aside.

No matter what, like, I couldn't - I could break a world record, get an Olympic gold medal, and my mom would be, like, you could have done better. But you looked pretty. That's what she says all the time.

Being mixed in the South, that's a struggle that everybody deals with differently. Some people go careening to one side or the other, and some people try to walk a tightrope between the two. I grew up spending equal time with both sides of my family.

I dressed as the Riddler once, when I was little too heavy to do. I would wear tights. My brother was in a hair metal band, and he had Riddler tights made. My brother's a geek, but he was in a heavy metal band, so I'm a chubby fifteen-year-old, and I borrow his Riddler tights and wear them to school with the package. That wasn't a good idea.