This was Rio Ferdinand, talking about England's chances of winning the World Cup, a few weeks before leaving for Germany.
'We believe in ourselves now, we can be on the pitch with any team in the world and think we can win. You want to come home from a tournament with a winner's medal. That's not the fans or the media putting us under pressure, that's the pressure we put ourselves under. I want a World Cup winner's medal. I can't speak for the rest of the squad, but that's how high my expectations are.'
Now here is Steve Gerrard, ruminating more ruefully after England came home. 'It pains me to admit this, but it needs saying. We were not as good as we thought we were. We placed too much pressure on ourselves by constantly claiming we could win the World Cup. Stupid. We talked ourselves up too much. Never again. In future we must learn to be humble.'
So what's all this then? Rio with a book to sell, that's what. 'Deep down Wazza actually believes he will be better than Eric Cantona and George Best, but he's not being cocky. People can see he's so good that it's possible he will be the best United player of all time. He's not just about silky skills. He's got the end product, he's clinical and he puts others in.'
Starting to see a pattern emerging? Maybe Rio has been too busy marking Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink to notice, but the number of outstanding performances by Wayne Rooney this year can be counted on one hand. Newcastle, Arsenal, Tottenham last season perhaps, and Wigan in the Carling Cup final. Nothing over summer, and not too much to write about since. Of course he has been injured, and suspended, and Sven used him criminally in the World Cup, but the bottom line as far as Wayne the Wonderkid goes is that the world is still waiting. Ineffective in the Manchester derby in January and in other big games since, crocked against Chelsea in April, dismissed against Portugal and sent off again in a pre-season friendly, Rooney has had something of an annus horribilis.
Perhaps, as one author to another, he should have a word with Rio. Maybe they could both take Jimmy Malone's advice from The Untouchables: 'Don't wait for it to happen. Don't even want it to happen. Just see what does happen.' Or note the motto of renaissance dramatist John Fletcher: 'Deeds, not words shall speak me.' But on balance it is probably easiest to listen to what Gerrard has been saying, and resist the temptation to pre-empt the judgment of history.
