England hero Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain admits being "scared to join in" with Brazil's brilliant beach footballers
England hero Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain admits being "scared to join in" with Brazil's brilliant beach footballers
Seeing locals' passion for the game makes Arsenal starlet more determined to help Three Lions return for World Cup finals
Eye-opening: Oxlade-Chamberlain's strike thrilled the nation (except his dozing dad)
Friedemann Vogel
From John Cross in Rio De Janeiro
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain admits he was left "scared" just watching Brazil's beach footballers.
Oxlade-Chamberlain wowed the iconic Maracana after scoring a wonder-goal for England in Sunday's 2-2 draw but he claimed a kickabout he was on the sands of the equally famous Copacabana left him "frightened."
But
it also gave the Arsenal starlet a taste for helping make sure England
book a trip back to Rio De Janeiro to participate in next summer's World
Cup finals.
"Our hotel was right on the beach," said
Oxlade-Chamberlain. "To see the footballing culture, to see how everyone
was playing football.
"My window was right over the beach. I could see people playing football until 9pm every night.
Echoing the pre-match words of club and international colleague Theo Walcott,
Oxlade-Chamberlain added: "I went down a few days ago to watch them
playing head tennis. Some of the first touches over here are
frightening. I would have been scared to go over and join in with them!
Even the bigger boys had good touches as well.
"It's a great
football nation and to be around it really does open your eyes to what a
great tournament next year's World Cup could be.
"To see the
passion the fans have and how much people love football over here only
drives us on to make sure we want to come back here next year."
Oxlade-Chamberlain
ensured that the best family traditions were kept up in the Maracana as
he followed in the footsteps of his dad Mark, who helped England enjoy a
glorious win over Brazil there in 1984. Mark, superbly, snored his way through Oxlade-Chamberlain's second half strike but the Arsenal midfielder hopes it will help inspire England to greater things for the rest of the qualifying campaign.
Oxlade-Chamberlain
said: "It's a nice bit of history. I'm sure my family will be proud of
that. It's an achievement, after my Dad did it. And to score is
fantastic. It's a great venue to score in.
"But the most important thing is the qualifiers coming up." Our house: The Chamberlains have a good record in the Maracana
Ian Volger / Daily Mirror
England currently sit second behind Montenegro in their
qualifying group, with only the winners advancing automatically to
Brazil and the runners-up entering a play-off.
They will be hoping
Ukraine can do them a favour in Montenegro on Friday, and will then try
to secure the required points from a September double-header of Moldova
at home and Ukraine away and back-to-back matches against Montenegro
and Poland in October.
"To get a result like this in the Maracana
is a bonus and we can take positives from this game and look at the
areas that we need to improve on. We can hopefully take that into the
final qualifiers," said Oxlade-Chamberlain.
"We can't control what
other teams do, I'm sure we'll see the highlights because everyone
watches football and we can't control the other teams and we must focus
on ourselves, what we need to improve on and what we need to keep on
doing.
"I'm sure the coaches will go away and watch endless hours
of footage from this game and it's their job to look at the other teams.
"As players, we have to stay focused on our team.
"We have
got a nice little break now - four weeks to rest up and make sure we
hit the ground running for both our club teams and also for the England
qualifiers."
Oxlade-Chamberlain now has the bragging rights over
his old man at home but is also determined to build on his second season
at Arsenal which was disrupted by injury and losing his regular place
in the team.
He is a mainstay in Roy Hodgson's team after securing
his place in Euro 2012 and is desperate to kick on again, in central
midfield, and stake a claim for the World Cup next summer. Grand central: Oxlade-Chamberlain will play in the middle for Arsenal
Clive Mason
He added: "I grew up as a more natural midfielder so whenever
I get the opportunity to come on in midfield I try to do so and I'm
happy and excited to show that I've got some attributes in midfield.
"I
need to make sure whether I'm asked to play in the middle or out wide, I
need to put in good performances and develop my game so I can be called
up in different positions.
"I'm only going to get better in that
position with game time; and when I'm out wide, I've got to improve my
game and keep improving just in general."
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