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Published 07 December 2022 4 min read
England Men's Senior Team

If I could…with John Stones

Written by:

Frank Smith

England defender becomes the latest to take on our feature where the players answer a host of questions starting with If I Could

1) If I could…play alongside one player from the history of world football, it would be…
…Pele. He is regarded as one of the best of all time. He won the World Cup at such a young age and he was incredible.

2) If I could…improve one part of my game today, it would be…
…goalscoring. I would like to add more goals to my game.

3) If I could…take one part of an England team-mate’s game, it would be…
Raheem Sterling’s dribbling. Being able to know when to dribble and not, and having that change of pace would be great.

Raheem Sterling's dribbling ability is regularly praised by his team-mates
Raheem Sterling's dribbling ability is regularly praised by his team-mates

4) If I could…go back to one event in history, it would be…
…when England won the World Cup in 1966. It was one of the biggest things to happen for us as a nation.

5) If I could…change one thing about the world, it would be… 
…well that’s a tough one as there are a lot of things I would like to change. I would maybe go with ending poverty. I would say having peace but everyone has that anger in them in some way but poverty is one of those things which you could realistically solve.

6) If I could…change one thing about football, it would be…
…the hate. I would change the abuse and the hate, both on and off the pitch.

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7) If I could…give my eight-year-old self one bit of advice, it would be…
…to always put your happiness first.

8) If I could…speak to that child who is considering joining their local team but isn’t sure, I would tell them…
…to try it so you know what it is like. Nothing bad is going to come from giving football a try. You might not like it but at least you will know. Whereas if you don’t try it, then you will never know. You might have a hidden talent or a hidden love for it so give it a try.

9) If I could…only eat one item of food for the rest of my life, it would be…
…a Sunday roast. It has got to be. You have a bit of everything don’t you?

10) If I could…choose who would play me in the film of my life story, it would be…
…Will Ferrell. I just love him so why not him?

England players with David Beckham during a visit to their Qatar World Cup base
England players with David Beckham during a visit to their Qatar World Cup base

11) If I could…invite three guests around for dinner, it would be…
…that’s a good one that. I am going to limit it to sport so I would go Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. That would be some dinner wouldn’t it?

12) If I could…have a second dream job, it would be…
…to be with my family all the time, purely because we spend so much time away from them, I would choose that.

13) If I could…be one person for a day, it would be…
…I don’t know why I am getting excited by this; like it is going to happen! But I wouldn’t mind seeing what it is like to be president of the United States. Doing that for the day and seeing what goes on would be good.

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