England can win next World Cup, says 1966 hero Sir Geoff Hurst
The last surviving member of the team which won the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966 was speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir Geoff Hurst believes England have the players to win the next World Cup and said Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp should be the new manager.
The 82-year-old, who is the last surviving member of the team which won the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966, said he thought the current generation are good enough to bring the World Cup home in 2026.
“It would not surprise me, and I will say this, if they continue to mature, it wouldn’t surprise me if we were successful in the next World Cup competition,” Sir Geoff said.
“I wouldn’t pick anybody out because I think we’ve got the best bunch of fantastic young players, and all know who they are. Absolutely terrific.”
I think you’ve got to understand the context. It’s the only time we’ve won it. I think if we had won it a few times our memory would have faded in the distant past
The former striker, who was speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival to promote his forthcoming book, Last Boy of ’66, said England were blessed with a rich array of talent, particularly in the forward areas, and not all could play at the same time.
“I wouldn’t be picking anybody out because arguably we have the most terrific bunch of young players, many of them unbelievably successful at clubs, who still maybe have three, four or five years left in them,” he said.
“In fact, it’s almost an embarrassment to an extent, because you get to the middle of the park, and you’ve got four or five players who could all get in but you’re going to leave a couple of fantastic players out.
“We are blessed with that.”
Asked whether Jude Bellingham was a better player than him, he jokingly replied: “Well, he’s in a different position so it’s hard to compare.
“But he’s not better than me yet because he hasn’t won a World Cup.”
Sir Geoff added: “I think he’s absolutely a fantastic player and going out to Real Madrid and doing what he’s doing in a foreign country at that age is just astonishing.
“(He is) one of the outstanding players I talked about earlier. Players of that quality and Foden and so on. We are so blessed with unbelievable talent.”
England are looking for a new manager after Gareth Southgate quit, and Sir Geoff picked out Guardiola and Klopp as his choices.
“I think what they’ve done at club level is unbelievable. You’ve got to pick managers that are as successful at club level as they have been,” he said.
“I do admire them, like the character, and how they handle themselves, the players, the press and so on. It’s not new to realise how well they do.
“The important thing about any team is the quality of the top man.
It’s the most asked question I get, and quite frankly and honestly I don’t get fed up talking about it. It was well over the line and had we had VAR it would show quite conclusively the ball was well over the line
“Of course, in our time, we had Alf Ramsey. Alf Ramsey, what he did was fantastic with England but to remind people when he was at Ipswich, what he achieved at Ipswich with a bunch of what I would call, the very ordinary players, winning the First Division championship beating Spurs.
“People used to say about the Ipswich side under Alf Ramsey you could dominate the game for 90 minutes and get beat.”
Sir Geoff is famous for scoring a perfect hat-trick: a header, with his right foot and then left foot – as England beat West Germany 4-2.
His second goal, as England took a 3-2 lead in extra time has proved controversial with questions persisting about whether the ball crossed the line.
“It’s the most asked question I get, and quite frankly and honestly I don’t get fed up talking about it,” he said.
“It was well over the line and had we had VAR it would show quite conclusively the ball was well over the line.
“I think you’ve got to understand the context. It’s the only time we’ve won it. I think if we had won it a few times our memory would have faded in the distant past.
“I think the fact we haven’t done so, it was such an important aspect of the game.”
Sir Geoff said that although his second goal still gets talked about nearly 60 years later, the equaliser by Wolfgang Weber to take the game into extra time was a “shifty goal”.
“A lot of people talk about my goal that bounced about a yard over the line but what happened with their goal is the ball is knocked across the box quite hard and the ball brushes between the arms of the left back Schnellinger and slows the ball down to enable Weber to come in at the far post and knock the equaliser in,” he said.
“We always felt, it’s been talked about quite a bit with the team over the years, that that ball hitting his arm, slowed the ball down.”
Hurst spoke of the way the modern game has changed since he played and thought players today should cross the ball more.
“I mean you watch the game today in many respects, at club level and international level, it’s a lot more cautious now,” he said.
“They play across the back, and they get to the wide right, where in my day you crossed the ball, then they go back to midfield player.
“In some of the matches, international and club level, it can be a little bit boring.
“I think from a centre forward’s perspective, you’re expecting when people get wide to cross the damn ball, otherwise when are you going to get the service and score goals?
“I think that’s an aspect of the game I’m not very keen on.”
Asked what lessons the current England team could take from 1966 team in order to win a tournament, Sir Geoff jokingly replied: “Cross the f****** ball more.”