I WANT TO START THIS BOOK BY TELLING YOU A STORY.

On July 11, 2021, England faced Italy in the final of UEFA Euro 2020.

(I know, it’s confusing to have a tournament called Euro 2020 in the summer of 2021, but COVID-19 caused a delay on a lot of things!)

We love soccer in England. It’s the most popular sport in the country. Everyone learns how to play it at school, and most weekends, thousands and thousands of people go to stadiums around the country to watch their favorite soccer team play. So England playing in a European final was a BIG deal!

It was the first time we had made it to the final of an international tournament since the World Cup in 1966. Soccer fans had waited fifty-five years for this moment, and to make things even better, the final was being held in Wembley Stadium in London. Just like in 1966, England was playing in a final at home. Everyone across the country was really excited.

All summer long, fans in England were singing funny, lighthearted songs about how soccer was going to come “home,” back to England, the country that helped invent the sport. There were loads of newspaper articles about the England players and the manager, and people even joked that it would be a national holiday the day after if England won. That final really felt like it was going to be a special moment for everyone. England was going to win UEFA Euro 2020 and bring the trophy home. Fans thought we were going to be European Champions.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

England scored an early goal, but we had some trouble after that—Italy was really good. I watched nearly all of that match from the substitute bench, seeing how Italy was getting more of the ball and controlling the pace of the game, until they eventually got a goal back, making the score 1–1. The game went into extra time, and in the last moments of the match, the England manager, Gareth Southgate, put me on for the penalty shootout.

A penalty shootout is a special way to decide a winner if a soccer match ends in a draw. It doesn’t happen in all soccer matches, but in big cup competitions, if no winner can be decided at the end of normal time (90 minutes) and extra time (an extra 30 minutes), then a penalty shootout is used to decide a winner.

In my opinion, a penalty shootout is soccer in its simplest form. It’s one-on-one soccer, one attacker vs. one goalkeeper, where the attacker’s task is to score a goal and the goalkeeper must stop that from happening. Each team nominates five attackers to take a penalty, and in the end, the team that scores the most penalties wins the whole game.

Five kicks of a ball to win a game of soccer. It sounds simple. Most weeks when I am playing for England or Manchester United, we will have a small session at the end of training where we all take penalties, and nearly everyone scores. But when it comes to a big game, where you have to take a penalty in front of thousands of soccer fans, with millions more watching at home? It’s often less about skill and more about the fine margins. Penalty shootouts can be nerve-racking, one of the hardest things to do as a professional soccer player, and some of the best players in the world have missed penalties in shootouts. England has a poor record with shootouts (I’ll tell you more about that later), and most of the time, soccer teams will go out of their way to make sure a game is finished so they can avoid one.

I was nominated to take the third penalty for England against Italy. By the time I stepped up to take my shot, Italy had scored two of their three attempts, while England had scored their first two. My kick would have taken England 3–2 up in the shootout and given us a big advantage for the remaining penalties.

I went up to take my penalty with nearly 60,000 England fans cheering me on. The Italian goalkeeper, a man called Gianluigi Donnarumma, is one of the biggest goalkeepers in the world of soccer, standing six feet, four inches tall. At my level of soccer, the goal is eight feet tall and eight yards wide, so I want you to imagine this BIG man filling up most of the space in this BIG goal, making it hard to score.

When I took my penalty, I took a stuttering run up, where I paused a little bit on my way to kick the ball in an attempt to make Donnarumma move early and make the penalty easier. By the time I got to the ball to take my shot, I had managed to get Donnarumma to guess the wrong way … but my shot missed the goal by an inch, hitting the post and going wide.

It was the biggest game of my international soccer career. The biggest game for the England team and fans in fifty-five years. And in one of the most important moments, I missed a chance to give us a lead. In the end, England lost that final 3–2 to Italy.

I felt terrible after that game. July 11, 2021, isn’t one of my favorite days. It’s not a date on the calendar I’ll be looking for in the future.

The day after that final, some people said some pretty hurtful things about myself, my manager, and some of my teammates who also missed penalties. It was tough. As a professional athlete, people often talk about what you do in the Big Moments, whether you won or lost the game and what you did to help, or not help, your team. Back in 2019, I played in a game for Manchester United against Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Champions League, where I was asked to take a penalty in the final minutes. It was this huge moment, and I had to score for Manchester United to get through to the next round. That time, I managed to score, and it felt great. But in the days after missing a penalty for England and losing the UEFA Euro 2020 final, I didn’t feel great. There is a painting of my face in a town in Manchester where I grew up, and someone was so angry that I didn’t score my penalty that they vandalized it. That really hurt me. Sometimes you can kick the ball right and you’re a hero. Other times you miss and people call you a zero.

BUT THEN SOMETHING AMAZING HAPPENED.

In the days following the final, people from all over the UK traveled to the painting and left messages of support for me and my teammates.

Now, you might be wondering why I’ve started a book called You Are a Champion with a story about losing a game for a championship. But I’m telling you this story to show you that there’s more than one way to win.

IN SPORTS. IN LIFE. IN EVERYTHING.

England had lost a final, but in the days following, I won something else: the knowledge that people from all over the country were rooting for the England team, including myself. That in the face of abuse, people were standing alongside one another to block out the negative noise. They were protecting me.

I know it’s not the same, and I know a part of me will always think about that penalty and the final we never won. But on that day—July 11, 2021—and in the days after, I learned that there can be more than one way of winning. You might not always get a trophy or the medal you wanted, but if you go out there with your head held high and try your best, you’ve already won.

MY NAME IS MARCUS RASHFORD,

AND I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT

YOU ARE A CHAMPION.

This book is my attempt to pass on some of the lessons I’ve picked up along my life’s journey. Things that have helped me through tough times and things that have helped me find and celebrate the good. I want you to know that there are people out there who believe in you, and who understand you are at the start of your life’s journey—a journey that can be the most incredible thing. My journey has taken me to some really interesting places, and something I’ve always tried to remember is that there are no limits to what is possible in this life. I know it isn’t always the smoothest, and sometimes you might get stuck and need help, but you are capable of amazing things.

Within you right now is the most incredible potential to go out there and chase your dreams, to be a champion in almost anything you put your mind to, because there are so many different ways you can be one!

You can be a champion in a competition and come out number one, but you can also still be a champion in the things you enjoy even if you don’t win prizes for them. I want to help you develop skills for the challenges ahead so you can be a champion at life.

You can be a champion for another person, and try your best to support them in what they do. I hope you’ll learn that there are people around you who are championing you right now, and that you can even be a champion for the people who are close to you, too.

You can be a champion for a cause. Back in England, I’ve been involved in a few anti-food-poverty campaigns, trying to get food to people who need it most, because that’s a cause very close to my heart. You might decide you want to be a champion for something you believe in, and I’d like to show you how to do that.

And no matter what happens in your life, the most amazing way that you can be a champion is by being your OWN champion. Trust me, when you believe in yourself, incredible things can happen.

I want you to think of this book as a key that unlocks new doors in your mind, and I hope that in reading this you find something useful for all the years ahead. I hope that by the time you get to the last page you’ll have found some new ways of thinking that will help you. Everyone is different, everyone has their own journey, but everyone, in their own special way, is a champion.

SO LET’S FIND OUT ALL THE WAYS THAT YOU ARE A CHAMPION.

Turn that page and let’s get to work.


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