Theo Walcott profile: Andrew Fifield charts the remarkably sudden rise to prominence of English football's latest discovery
Theo Walcott was taking his driving theory test when Sven-Goran Eriksson ripped off the teenager's footballing L-plates. The England manager, a bedfellow to conservatism during his five-year reign, has laid his own reputation on the line in the hope that he can make Walcott's at this summer's World Cup.
It is, as he admits, a massive gamble.
The reaction to the 17-year-old's inclusion in the Swede's 23-man squad on Monday has ranged from bewilderment to downright hysteria, but the one person who appears blessedly unmoved by the whole furore is Walcott himself. The Arsenal forward celebrated with a quiet night in with his family and a game of Monopoly - the World Cup version, obviously - before being hauled out to face the press yesterday.
"My first thoughts were that I can't believe this is true," he said. "I was taking my driving test so I switched off my phone and put it in my locker. I turned it back on in the afternoon, phoned my dad and then he told me. To be honest, I didn't believe him."
Walcott has had to learn how to shield himself from the dazzle of publicity ever since he took his first confident steps into English football last year, but nothing compares to the level of scrutiny he is receiving now. One tabloid has already trumpeted him as the nation's saviour as Wayne Rooney, the previous Messiah, nurses his broken metatarsal.
Walcott is rapidly becoming the most analysed teenager in the history of English sport, but even a quick glance at his background is enough to show this is a very different breed of footballer.
He may have been drafted by Eriksson in the hope that he can replicate the startling impact of Rooney, another who took the world by storm at a tender age, but these two bright young things could hardly be more different.
The Manchester United striker is a rough-hewn diamond, a council estate kid with Celtic fire in his belly and a Scouser's irrepressible sense of mischief. Walcott has spent most of his life in a leafy Berkshire village and speaks with the rounded vowels and clipped tones of the English Home counties.
Rooney's father was a boxer and his extended family played semi-professional football; Walcott's dad, Don, was a civilian engineer for the Royal Air Force and the only sporting legacy he inherited was a cricketing one: his father's cousin was the former West Indies batsman Clyde Walcott.
Rooney and Walcott make an odd couple, but the one quality they share is startling precociousness. Apocryphal stories always cling to special talents - heard the one about Jose Mourinho lining up stray cats and dogs in a 4-4-2 formation as a teenager in his native Setubal? - but in Walcott's case, the tall tales check out.
Once, as an 11-year-old, he brought an abrupt end to a pre-match warm-up when he broke the hand of one of the players' parents, who had unwisely volunteered to keep goal. In his first full season, he chalked up 100 goals; in one match against a Dutch schoolboy side, he scored nine times in a 14-0 win.
"He was amazing," recalled Tom Moore, his strike partner for the Downs secondary school team. "His pace and the power in his shot were what made him so good. Then, when he got older, he got all the skills."
Walcott's initial sporting interest lay in athletics: he clocked 11.52 seconds for the 100 metres in 2004 and considered a future as a sprinter.
Remarkably, Walcott did not even kick a ball until he was almost 11, when he turned out for a local side as a favour to a friend. Then, it all clicked.
"I scored a hat-trick," Walcott said, "but I didn't really have a clue how to play football. I suppose it just came naturally. I was quite a fast runner and they would put it over the top and I would run on to it."
As Walcott's star began to rise, so did the number of scouts flocking to watch him. Swindon were the first to take a chance, before Chelsea and Southampton offered him trainee terms in 2000. Stamford Bridge's money factory would have tempted most, but St Mary's offered security and one of the finest academies in England. Walcott duly signed for the Saints.
"When I tried to discuss how much he could earn from contracts, Theo said, 'I don't want to know'," said Warwick Horton, his former agent. "The kid and his parents are just not money-motivated."
Walcott's family and girlfriend, Melanie, have been steadying influences ever since he began his dizzying ascent. They acted as a shield when he became Southampton's youngest ever player in August 2005, and when he took the TV nation's breath away with an audacious first-time lob over Luton's Marlon Beresford three months later.
Soon, the scouts were circling again. Again, Chelsea led the chase, making it clear Southampton - and Walcott - could name their price on a move to the champions' home in West London. But, again, they were rebuffed, and it was Arsenal who completed an €18 million deal in January.
Highbury was an obvious destination, and not just because Thierry Henry has been Walcott's pin-up of choice since he was a schoolboy. Arsene Wenger has a distinguished track record of handing youngsters their lead, having made regulars of Nicolas Anelka, Jose Antonio Reyes, Francesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie while they were still teenagers. As Walcott observed, "Youngsters get a chance at this club."
Now, apparently, the same is true with England. Nobody could have predicted Walcott's turbo-charged elevation to the world stage and many will remain sceptical. This, after all, is a man who recently named Charlton's workmanlike full-back Jonathan Spector as the toughest opponent he had ever faced. This summer, Alessandro Nesta, Jaap Stam, Walter Samuel and Lillian Thuram could bar his path.
The nightmare is that Walcott is crushed by a nation's expectations; the fantasy is that he makes himself their hero. Either way, this impressive young man should continue to treat success and failure as impostors.
"I have total confidence in my own ability," he added. "I was shocked and surprised like everyone else was but most players don't get to go to a World Cup. I'm one of the lucky ones." March 16th, 1989: Born in Middlesex.
Walcott Factfile
1999: Plays for AFC Newbury, near his home-town of Compton in Berkshire.
March 2000: Joins Swindon Town and plays for the club's under-11 side.
September 2000: Enrols in Southampton's academy.
September 2004: Becomes the youngest player ever to represent Southampton's reserves.
August 6th, 2005: Becomes Southampton's youngest ever full debutant at 16 years and 143 days when he appears as a substitute in the game with Wolves.
October 18th, 2005: Scores his first senior goal, away at Leeds United in a 2-1 defeat.
January 20th, 2006: Signs for Arsenal in an £18 million deal.
April 15th, 2006: Arsene Wenger admits he would be tempted to take Walcott to the World Cup if he were the England manager.
May 8th, 2006: Sven-Goran Eriksson names Walcott in his 23-man squad for Germany.
'I trained with Theo every day and he is something special. He tore the Championship apart and he will set the Premier League alight. He has got it all at his feet.' - Nigel Quashie, former team-mate at Southampton
'He is quicker than anyone else I have ever seen. The boy glides over the park: if he walked over a puddle, he wouldn't make a splash.' - Harry Redknapp, former manager at Southampton
'Wayne Rooney has achieved a lot, and I want to be cautious with comparisons. But he has the same ingredients at the same age to be a big prospect for England.' - Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager
'It's a big gamble, I know it is, but I am excited to see him. He's a big talent and pace in football today is worth a lot.' - Sven-Goran Eriksson, the England manager
