Frank Lampard wants a move to the United States of America, not Real Madrid. But there is no reason for Chelsea fans to start worrying about it because his intention is to move when he is 35 or 36. So that is 20 goals guaranteed for Chelsea every season for the next 3 or 4 years.
Here are excerpts from his interview with James Brown for Sabotage times which I found interesting.
When was the first time you knew you had made it? Was there a game early on where you felt that?
To be honest I never had that, not at school, not with the other teams I played for, not even with the youth team at West ham or when I’d broken into the first team. I didn’t truly think I’d made
it to where I wanted to be until I signed for Chelsea.
People often imagine it must be easier going from school team to club schoolboys and professional youth teams if you’re dad was a player or works at the club but Nigel Clough and Scot Gemmil have both said it was a lot more difficult for them breaking through at Forest under their fathers?
Well there’s something in that, it’s better in that you have football around you, but the down side is when you come off the pitch for the school team you are being told ‘you should have done this or that’ all the way home. It doesn’t stop and you can’t argue about it because you know you’re right.
These are the things you went through in preparing the groundwork for your professional career, are you doing the same thing for life after football?
Yes, the first thing is after I finish I don’t want to be involved with football, not as a manager, coach, agent or in the media. Not interested. I’ve been getting to know a lot about property, not just for me to live in, but as a business. I have a family to support, I know that might sound strange when you consider the money that’s mentioned but I want to have a career after this, and I don’t want this to be everything. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life just living in the past.
Do you think the standard of opposition is better in the Champions League than when you play for England?
No, there’s definitely a difference. With the Champions League you’ll know who you are playing against and they’ll have their key players, everyone knows about them whereas when you play for England against someone from somewhere like Eastern Europe, Croatia, or somewhere like that, they’re all good. And you discover that as the games going on, there’s not a lot of weaknesses in the international teams so I’d say the standard is definitely higher.
What do you think about immigration? Years ago, there would have been one or two foreign players but now if you look at teams like Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Portsmouth, Bolton the vast majority of the first team are imports. Twenty years ago there might have been a right winger at Doncaster who could have been looking at a move to the top division, now that’s an exception to the rule.
I don’t think the Doncaster right-winger can play as well as Arjen Robben, they can’t give what he’s giving. And if you’re talking about football as an entertainment business, I don’t think that they’re giving the sort of value he does.
Who’s the joker in the Chelsea team?
John Terry, and our masseur, he’s a total lunatic, he’s the butt of all jokes on the bus. If you’re talking ridiculous high jinks like school kids going into each other’s rooms to turn the beds over, we don’t that so much anymore. Just fights in the massage room with cream, we just smash cream over one another – it’s really good fun when you’re in it. It’s a stupid thing though ha ha.
Are you aware when people get resentful of your success?
Yeah. I hate it. It is something that’s there though. Sometimes I think, especially with the way the football world is, with people writing about the money, and how we live, and the WAGS and all that shit, people paint a picture of us, rather than just seeing the bloke behind it all. I’m not saying that I’m the best bloke in the world, but if anyone met me they would see that I’m a decent geezer, I’ll always be prepared to say hello.
Do you the players ever get a say in picking the team?
No.
What did you think about Beckham going to America is that something you’d like to do?
It’s his decision, isn’t it? When he went, I thought, maybe he’s gone too early, but the more I thought about it, I thought, if that’s what he wants to do, let him do it. I’d like to go and play in America when I’m 36 or 35 but you can’t take away someone’s right to go and play where they want.
