Emile Heskey opens up on World Cup pressure, isolation and England’s biggest threat

“You dream of these things as a kid, going out and playing, then you dream of scoring as well. I managed to do that.” The World Cup is a tournament like no other, whether you are a player, fan or coach. Emile Heskey certainly has fond memories of playing for England in the 2002 and 2010 editions, as he told AS USA, speaking on behalf of World Cup betting site 888sport.

Childhood dreams and World Cup memories

“Best memories, obviously first game,” Heskey recalls with a twinkle in his eye. “Suddenly you’re out on the pitch and you’re like, wow, full stadium. We were playing Sweden, so you’ve got all the England fans, you’ve got the Sweden fans. And then scoring against Denmark.”

In his first World Cup in 2002, Heskey was a key player for the Three Lions, starting all five of their games as they reached the quarterfinals, where they lost to Brazil.

England’s slow starts under the microscope

Famously, England have only won the tournament once, 60 years ago in 1966, but how does the former striker assess their chances this time around? After topping Group L, DR Congo are up next in the round of 32. Heskey would like to see Thomas Tuchel’s team come out of the traps more quickly to ensure there are no slip-ups.

“I think first half we haven’t got going, so there’s something to address there and to really look into why. Second half we’ve been good. We’ve been a bit more aggressive, a bit more on the front foot. But we need to figure out why our first halves are quite slow and slump and sluggish.”

England’s attacking threats

Heskey confesses that England aren’t as strong as he would like them to be defensively, but insists they have the tools to go deep in the tournament, potentially surpassing his 2002 team’s achievements.

“We’ve got some real good runners going forward,” says the former Liverpool striker. “Harry Kane is Harry Kane, where you give him the ball he drops deep, he sets play off, but he can get in the box as well and finish play off.

“We’ve got very rapid wingers. Whether it be Madueke or Saka or Gordon or Rashford, I think we’ve got very tricky wingers getting at players.

“Gordon’s just signed for Barcelona. You don’t sign for Barcelona being a bad player. So I know there’s a lot of scrutiny on him at this moment in time, but I think he’s done really well to enable other players to come on and really take it to them after that.”

Jude Bellingham’s influence

But if there’s one England player who has really stood out for Heskey, it’s a man who is also used to pulling on a white jersey at club level.

“Bellingham, he was outstanding in the Panama game, where he was getting on the ball, he was driving, he was trying to make things happen. He scored his goal, he set one up. Not just that, he did the defensive work as well, he was winning balls back to enable us to go again. Other teams will be looking at that.”

France emerge as the biggest threat

There is one country, however, that Heskey believes England, and everyone else, will likely be looking to avoid given how they performed in the group stage.

“Coming into the tournament, France was my favourite. They stood out (in the group stage) because of their strength in depth and their ability to be flexible and adaptable,” the ex-attacker explains, before rattling off a host of names that will be giving World Cup defenders nightmares.

“You look at who was probably one of the best right wingers in Europe last season, it was Olise. Now he’s playing number 10. Dembélé struggled in the first game but now we’ve seen he’s coming into his own. Barcola came on and scared the living daylights out of defenders and he’s not even a starter. Doué is scoring goals as well, and then you’ve obviously got Mbappé. Defensively they look sound as well.”

Heskey also had his eye on other round of 32 ties as the knockout stage begins to take shape.

“There’s two. Holland and Morocco, which is quite tight. I do believe Holland will probably pip iy. And Brazil vs Japan. I had Japan as my outsiders, but they’ve come up against Brazil, so yeah, it’ll be an interesting one.”

Knockout football raises the stakes

A new dynamic has now come to the fore in the 2026 World Cup with the start of the knockout stage, in which one slip-up is fatal. But Heskey, who reached the round of 16 with England in 2010, as well as the last quarterfinals eight years earlier, says elite players shouldn’t be changing their approach mid-tournament.

“You have to be on it straight away because if you’re not, you can easily lose group games and go out early on. We had Croatia. You lose that game and you’re suddenly in a massive fight. You’ve got to be on it every single time.”

DR Congo present early test

That will be even more imperative when England play their round of 32 clash against DR Congo, who many will expect Tuchel’s side to dispose of comfortably.

“In this next game, they know some of these players and one thing you’ve got to remember, for any nation, is that England’s a scalp. You’re going to be coming with all guns blazing. So we’ve got to be prepared for that.”

Pressure and life inside the bubble

The pressure will be heaped on England to do the business, but how exposed are players on the world’s top national teams to expectations back home?

“When we went to the Euros in 2000, we were exposed to it, a bit of pressure on us,” Heskey remembers. “In 2002, we were just in our own bubble, didn’t know anything, across the other side of the world. It’s probably best that way for me.

“I prefer to be in a little bit of a bubble where you can just go and enjoy and know that the task ahead is you against that team. Not you against the rest of the world and you’ve got to do something to make them happy. Don’t worry about what everyone else is thinking.

“But some people like that pressure and the tension, it pulls the best out of them.”

The human side of a World Cup

Navigating a World Cup, though, can also be challenging on a human level, not just in relation to what goes on out on the field.

“Being away and being isolated,” Heskey responded when asked what is toughest about tournament life. “We play football 24/7, but we’re there with our families. You get to go training, you come back with your family, you go for a walk, you go and pick the kids up from nursery. These simple things keep you grounded as well.

“But then you’re suddenly in a room, a hotel room, then you’re in another room, then you’re in another room. You’ve got a room to eat there, and then you’re just in that room to have a massage, and then you’re just sat in your room. We never really got it right where we integrated more and did things more together as a group outside of the hotel and the complex. We probably could have done that a lot better.”

Emile Heskey was speaking on behalf of World Cup betting site 888sport.

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