If the Medio helps his team win World Cup, he will join legendary Pele in a rare breed of players who have won four personal trophies in a year. But the Holland star says he is chasing no records
If the Medio helps his team win World Cup, he will join legendary Pele in a rare breed of players who have won four personal trophies in a year. But the Holland star says he is chasing no recordsWesley Sneijder will join Pele in one of football's most exclusive clubs if he can help Holland win the World Cup and complete a remarkable personal haul of four major trophies in the same year.
This year has already seen Sneijder win Champions League, Serie A and Italian Cup titles with his club, Inter Milan, and if his country get the better of Spain at Soccer City on Sunday, the Dutch playmaker will have had the kind of year that only one player has ever enjoyed before.
That was in 1962, when Pele, then 21, won league and Copa Libertadores titles with his club Santos.
He then helped his country to claim a second consecutive World Cup before finishing on the winning side in Santos's Inter-Continental Cup clash later that year.
Franz Beckenbauer came close to emulating the Brazilian great in 1974 but while he skippered West Germany to World Cup glory and Bayern Munich to Bundesliga and European Cup titles, the Kaiser missed out on the German Cup.
Sneijder, 26, is also in the running to finish as the World Cup's top scorer. He currently shares top spot with Spain's David Villa, both of them having found the net five times.
But he insists such thoughts have not entered his head. "All these statistics are the least of my worries, believe me I've not thought for a second about breaking any records.
"What I want is to win the World Cup, end of story! I also get asked about being the player of the tournament or the top scorer. But if I go on to the pitch with all these things in my head, I'll forget how to play football."
Spanish party pooper plots Sneijder downfall
Meanwhile, Spaniard Sergio Busquets dreams of being a party pooper Sunday when he faces the Dutch star in the World Cup final.
While Busquets was part of the Barcelona team that won the Spanish title, Sneijder is chasing a fourth winners medal having helped Inter Milan conquer Europe after they raised the Italian league and cup trophies.
Spain are favoured to win a Soccer City clash of countries who have never been world champions, but Sneijder poses a major threat after a superb tournament that triggered a 35-million-euro offer from Manchester United.
Sneijder has already made Busquets suffer once as Inter dumped title holders Barcelona out of the Champions League at the semi-final stage in a gripping two-leg showdown.
"He is a great player and is in great form. We will try to stop him like any other player," said Busquets. "We will try to deny him even the time to think because otherwise he can create good scoring chances."
The Sneijder multi-title assault has been the subject of some banter with former Real Madrid team-mate Sergio Ramos, a defender who will try to contain the Dutch playmaker before a sell-out 90,000 crowd.
"I got a text message from Sergio saying 'you have already won enough trophies this season. It is time to calm down!" 26-year-old Sneijder told reporters.
"We are going to beat Spain," he insisted. "If we are not convinced of that, we will never do it. That is what the coach says, just like Jose Mourinho did at Inter last season. I have been in the form of my life since we got to South Africa and I want to squeeze every last drop out of it," said the midfielder whose two goals sank champions Brazil in the quarter-finals.
