Gary Lineker

Gary Winston Lineker (Leicester, England, November 30, 1960) is an English former soccer player, considered one of the best strikers in the world of his time. He managed to be crowned the top scorer at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico with 6 goals. In addition, he was awarded the Silver Ball in 1986 and the Bronze Ball in 1991. He is one of the few players in all of history who has not received a single yellow card during his career. During his three years as a soccer player for F.C. Barcelona he learned to speak Spanish fluently.

Trajectory

He began to stand out at his hometown club, Leicester City, with whom he made his English Second Division debut at just 19 years old. In his only two seasons in the premiere, Lineker scored a total of 51 goals and drew the attention of the big European clubs, who bid for his services.

He signed for Everton in the summer of 1985 but only played one season at the Liverpool club, where he scored 38 goals and won a Community Shield against Manchester United.

In 1986, thanks in part to his good performance in the 1986 Soccer World Cup, he received the Silver Ball trophy, which distinguished him as the second best European player of the year.

After his success in England, he signed for Barcelona in the summer of 1986. In the 1986/87 and 1987/88 seasons, he scored respectively 20 and 16 goals in the league, plus those scored in Copa del Rey and European competitions. In the 1988/89 season he ostensibly lowered his goalscoring marks because the new Barcelona coach, Johan Cruyff, lined him up as a left winger.

During his Barcelona days, he won the Copa del Rey (1988) and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1989.

In 1989 he returned to England, joining the ranks of Tottenham Hotspur. He spent three seasons with Spurs, with whom he won the FA Cup in 1991.

That same year, he accepted a multimillion-dollar offer from the Nagoya Grampus Eight, a team in the Japanese league, where Lineker ended his career in 1994.

After his retirement he devoted himself to commenting on football for the BBC, making a program called Gary Lineker's Golden Boots., where he presented reports on great players and coaches from previous World Cups.

In 2023, he criticized on a social network a government bill to prevent migrants arriving through the English Channel from applying for asylum in the United Kingdom, for which it was suspended by the BBC. In the face of very negative criticism, the BBC gave up suspending it.

National team

Lineker made his England debut in 1984. He was the top scorer in the 1986 World Cup with six goals, a hat-trick against Poland, two against Paraguay and a goal against Argentina. After losing to Germany on penalties in the semifinals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy, he uttered one of his best-known phrases:

• "Football is a simple game: 22 men run behind a ball for 90 minutes and, in the end, the Germans always win."

In total he played 80 games with the pross in which he scored 48 goals, 10 of them in the 2 World Cups he played (six in 1986 and four in 1990).

Participations in World Cups

World	Headquarters	Outcome	Parties	Goles	Prom.
1986 World Cup Soccer	Mexico Mexico	Final rooms	5	6	1,20
1990 World Cup Soccer/Football	ItalyItaly	Fourth place	7	4	0.57
Total in World Cups			12	10	0.83

Clubs

Club	Country	Year	Goles
Leicester City	EnglandEngland	1978-1985	103
Everton	EnglandEngland	1985-1986	38
Barcelona	SpainSpain	1986-1989	52
Tottenham Hotspur	EnglandEngland	1989-1992	80
Nagoya Grampus Eight	JapanJapan	1992-1994	8

Statistics

Club	Div.	Season	League		Cups National(1)		Tournaments International(2)		Total		Media Shotgun(3)
			Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles
Leicester City EnglandEngland	2. a
		1978-79	7	1	-	-	-	-	7	1	0.14
		1979-80	19	3	1	0	-	-	20	3	0.15
	1. a	1980-81	9	2	1	1	-	-	10	3	0.30
	2. a	1981-82	39	17	8	2	-	-	47	19	0.40
		1982-83	40	26	3	0	-	-	43	26	0.60
	1. a	1983-84	39	22	2	0	-	-	41	22	0.54
		1984-85	41	24	7	5	-	-	48	29	0.60
	Total club		194	95	22	8	-	-	216	103	0.48
Everton EnglandEngland	1. a
		1985-86	41	30	11	8	-	-	52	38	0.73
	Total club		41	30	11	8	-	-	52	38	0.73
Club Barcelona SpainSpain	1. a
		1986-87	41	20	1	1	8	0	50	21	0.42
		1987-88	36	16	5	2	8	2	49	20	0.41
		1988-89	26	6	4	1	8	4	38	11	0.29
	Total club		103	42	10	4	24	6	137	52	0.38
Tottenham Hotspur EnglandEngland	1. a
		1989-90	38	24	7	2	-	-	45	26	0,58
		1990-91	32	15	11	4	-	-	43	19	0.44
		1991-92	35	28	7	5	8	2	50	35	0.70
	Total club		105	67	25	11	8	2	138	80	0,58
Nagoya Grampus JapanJapan	1. a
		1993	7	1	5	4	-	-	12	5	0.42
		1994	11	3	1	0	-	-	12	3	0.25
	Total club		18	4	6	4	-	-	24	8	0.33
Total in your career			461	238	74	35	32	8	567	281	0.50

Honours of Prizes

National Championships (3)

Title	Club	Country	Year
Second Division	Leicester City	EnglandEngland	1980
Community Shield	Everton	EnglandEngland	1985
Copa del Rey	Barcelona	SpainSpain	1988
FA Cup	Tottenham Hotspur	EnglandEngland	1991

International Cups (1)

Title	Club	Country	Year
Coup Europe	Barcelona	SpainSpain	1989

Individual awards