Marcus Rashford too young to remember 2006 World Cup but cannot wait for 2018

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Marcus Rashford is so young that the first World Cup he remembers was 2010, just seven years ago. But now the Manchester United striker has put England on the brink of making the 2018 tournament, in Russia, and he is desperate to get there.

It never occurred to the young Rashford growing up that he might play at England, at least not until he started to play for England under-16s five years ago. Although he grew up loving football and playing for United, the 2006 World Cup in Germany came slightly too soon for him.

Rashford’s first World Cup memories were four years later, when he was 12 years old and England were knocked out by Germany 4-1 in Bloemfontein in the last-16.

“The first one that I properly watched when my football brain was more fully developed was 2010,” Rashford remembered. “When Frank Lampard scored [his disallowed goal] against Germany. That was when I started watching, to be honest. It was very recent.”

By that point Rashford had been playing for United’s academy teams for years but it was only when he started to be involved with the England set-up that he believed he could play for the national side too. Before then he had only really thought about United.

“It was more a Manchester United thing, for me,” Rashford said. “You don’t start to think about England until you are a bit older, 15 or 16 and start playing in the England youth team. That is when you start to dream about these moments like this.”

Soon after was the 2014 World Cup, when Rashford was 16, and climbing the ladder at United, he remembers following closely with family. “The last World Cup in Brazil I think was on holidays,” he said. “I was in Dubai. I was watching all the games, following the whole World Cup – it was quite a chilled holiday. Me and my brothers are into that type of stuff if it is on.”

Fast forward just two years and Rashford was part of the England squad for the disastrous Euro 2016 campaign in France. He was brought on too late against Iceland and while his memories of last summer are bad, there is hope for improvement next time.

“I won’t class it as a good experience because you never want to experience losing a tournament,” he said. “I think it was a difficult one to take, but hopefully next time around you hope to learn from it we and hopefully next time around we will do better.”