AGE: 42
POSITION: Striker
TEAM: England National, Liverpool (among others)
CLAIM TO FAME: One of England’s highest-scoring players (including three World Cup appearances); lead scorer for Liverpool from 1997 to 2004
PERSONAL: Horse breeder and owner; daughter Gemma is on Love Island
IT WAS NEVER MY AMBITION JUST to be a professional football player, it was my ambition to be the best player in the world. Everybody has one tournament that left an impression on them and the 1990 World Cup was the one for me. I was 10 or 11 at the time and it was just so exciting—all the color, all the music and all the great players. It made me realize: This is football, this is what it’s about.
Now that I’ve retired from football, I realize that to do what I did so young, I did have this mentality of relentless positivity. Looking back, I could miss 100 chances in a game and pick up the paper the next day and see people saying, “Oh,
