It was the height of summer when Callum Wilson opened his diary and made a note on Sunday, November 13. 'Pack for Qatar,' the Newcastle United number nine wrote.
Wilson had not been called up by England since 2019, but the 30-year-old was not about to give up on his World Cup dream - and he made it happen.
It is an inspiring story. Not only has Wilson bounced back from a number of setbacks on the field, including two serious knee injuries, but the striker also had a testing start in life and spent a brief period in foster care before going on to help his mother, Tara, raise his five siblings.
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Cyrus Christie, who was Wilson's best man, said his friend and former Coventry City team-mate has shown a 'lot of heart and resilience' along the way.
"I lived literally two or three minutes around the corner from Callum," the Hull City defender told ChronicleLive. "The areas we came from were tough backgrounds, tough communities. There was a lot of poverty.
"Cal is on the other side of that now and has done well for himself considering the conditions and situation. Everyone within that squad, everyone from where we were from, always backed ourselves to do well and make it out and do something good. Here Callum is now about to enter into the biggest tournament in football."
It may be a new stage, but these are familiar surroundings for Wilson. It was here in Doha, while recovering from his second anterior cruciate ligament injury, that Wilson vowed he would be back to play in the World Cup several years later. The future England international had not even been capped at the time.
You can see why a number of players have welcomed this mentality monster's support when they, too, have suffered serious knee injuries. Wilson, after all, knows what not to do.
Following his first anterior cruciate ligament injury, in 2015, Wilson rushed his rehab to return to action six-and-a-half months later and was mentally drained to the point where he was not getting in the team at Bournemouth and even considered moving to West Brom. When Wilson did his other ACL, in 2017, the number nine vowed to come back a 'different animal' and learned lessons from his first spell on the sidelines as he mixed up his rehab with stints in Dubai, the U.S. and, of course, Qatar.
Wilson, who bears the scars of the operations on both knees, has since helped Emil Krafth through the early stages of his recovery - just as he did when former Bournemouth team-mate Charlie Daniels suffered two serious injuries in the space of just five months in 2019.
"Callum was very supportive because he knew the struggles and everything that goes along with it," Daniels told ChronicleLive. "Not only the physical stuff, but the mental state you go through as an injured player.
"It was very tough and you have to be very strong-minded to get through that and come out the other side. Callum has done that numerous times so that just shows the mental toughness that he has."
No wonder Eddie Howe was looking forward to reuniting with Wilson when he got the Newcastle job little more than a year ago. Not only has Wilson been a crucial player on the field; the England international has been a key member of the Magpies' leadership group.
That role as dressing room lieutenant was one Wilson grew into during his time under Howe at Bournemouth. Former team-mate Dan Gosling told ChronicleLive Wilson was a 'real leader of men' while Andrew Surman said he was 'very strong-minded'.
"He's a big character around the dressing room on and off the pitch," Surman told ChronicleLive. "He's a character you want in your dressing room, especially when things maybe are not going well.
"He will pick the players up with his personality. He's a great guy to have around the club and you know what you're going to get from him on the pitch. I never played with him and thought, 'He's not really put a shift in'. He puts 100% in every week."
Gareth Southgate knows all about those qualities and there is a reason why Wilson is the only other out and out striker in the England boss' World Cup squad alongside captain Harry Kane. Wilson has been directly involved in eight goals this season and as Southgate said himself: "Form could be more important."
The reality is there are few better finishers in the business. Wilson even has the highest shot conversion rate (23%) in the Premier League of any player to have scored 20-plus goals since joining Newcastle in 2020.
Not many footballers are quite the same after a serious knee injury - let alone two - but Wilson has adapted superbly. Few are better placed to comment on that than former Coventry City boss Steven Pressley.
"The speed he had in those initial years would scare any defender, but he's gained the yardage in his mind now," Pressley told ChronicleLive. "He's become an even more intelligent striker.
"He works on counter movements a lot. Especially at crosses, I see him getting across people. Like a lot of good strikers do, they adapt with experience and he's done that to great effect."
While Wilson has evolved as a footballer, the England international has not changed as a person and, to this day, he still has the same circle of friends. Wilson has even been back to the clubhouse at Christ the King, where he once scored 67 goals in a single Sunday league season at the age of 14, to present trophies to the next generation.
As pal and former team-mate Conor Thomas pointed out, 'people can change on their journey to the top, but Callum has stayed exactly the same'. Right down to occasionally still talking about himself in the third person.
"He's just a joker to be honest," Thomas told ChronicleLive. "If other people did or said what he did and acted like he did, you would think, 'Oh my God! Who is this k-------?' But he's so funny and laughs everything off. He gets away with it because he's such a genuine person. It's coming from a good place.
"The best way to describe him is infectious in the nicest possible way. His self-confidence is through the roof and he's always laughing and joking. He's just brilliant to be around. He wears off on everyone."
You often hear Wilson's laugh before you see him and the 30-year-old's personality has made him a popular figure in all of the dressing rooms he has walked into over the years. Take Kettering Town, for instance, where Wilson was playing non-league football little more than a decade ago.
Rather than thinking he was too good for that level, as some professional players do, Wilson welcomed the chance to get some proper experience of men's football on loan during his younger days at Coventry and earned the respect of those around him. It was certainly an eye-opener. Some of Wilson's team-mates arrived for training in their uniforms after coming straight from work and win bonuses literally helped pay their mortgages.
That experience stuck with Wilson and when the Newcastle number nine learned that former Kettering boss Marcus Law was in town for the Magpies' game against Brentford last season, he made sure was looked after at St James' Park.
"Even though Callum had to shoot off to Birmingham for a birthday, he still made his way up and spent a little bit of time with my friends, who are actually big Newcastle fans," Law told ChronicleLive. "He's been accommodating and respectful to a numerous amount of people who have helped him get where he's got to, but I would have no shadow of a doubt in saying it's him who has made it happen.
"He's had people influence him, but he's had to use those influences and scenarios in what I'd imagine is a very solitary world at times. When he was younger, it would have been very easy to go the other way."
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