Marcus Rashford and Andy Murray discuss the pressures of high-level sport and much more in revealing video chat

SPORTING stars Marcus Rashford and Andy Murray tonight opened up to each other about life in the spotlight.

On the ATP Tour website and their own social media channels, the Manchester United striker and the two-time Wimbledon champion discussed pressure of playing at the top level, scoring penalties, VAR and women’s football.

Marcus Rashford: One question I’ve got for you is how your mentality differs to mine in terms of being in a team or an individual sport?

It’s always intrigued me and it’s an interesting conversation.

Andy Murray: One of the nice things about an individual sport is the outcome of the match is solely reliant on you. If you go out and have a great performance the chances are that you win.

Whereas in a team sport you might play badly and the rest of your team plays great and you still win. In a team sport you don’t want to let your fans or team-mates down.

It’s one of the things I’ve missed a little bit. I love the team competitions in tennis.

But sometimes tennis can feel a little bit lonely. You’re travelling and you might be playing in Australia and all your family are back home.

There are pros and cons to both but I love the fact that in tennis if you put in the work yourself you solely can influence the outcome of the match.

What’s tougher: taking the penalty to win the Champions League or serving to win the Wimbledon title?

Rashford: The moment of a penalty is the one time where a footballer’s mindset is in the similar mindset to what you just spoke about.

It’s just you against the keeper and if you take a good penalty you’re going to score and ultimately win the game for your team.

With tennis you’re doing that all the time against one opponent. You’re probably more in a rhythm of doing that. So I’d probably say the penalty is more difficult purely because there aren’t that many of them that come about in games.

Murray: I’d imagine it’s unbelievably difficult. Because if you got a penalty at the end of a Champions League final there would be a good few minutes before you’d actually take it.

The referee is getting rid of all the players and the crowd, then calming everyone down. There’s a really big build up to it, like the suspense to it, which creates that pressure and drama.

If someone got fouled and immediately ten seconds later you just went up and took the penalty it’d probably be a lot easier. But you’ve a lot of time to think as well when you’ve the penalties. That’s one of the things that must be very tough. Especially in penalty shootouts.

Rashford: And especially with VAR as well. Because that’s just come into the game.

Murray: Are you a fan of it?

Rashford: In the future it’ll definitely improve the game. But we all have to go through steps. When something’s new it’s not going to be at its best straightaway. And we have to understand and respect that.

I don’t think the English game is completely used to it yet, but we’ve definitely got better than when it first started at the beginning of the season.

Only time will tell but personally it will improve the game to that next level.

Murray: I played at Wimbledon the first time when I was 18. I went from playing in front of ten or 15 people to playing in front of tens of millions on the TV. It was a huge change in my life.

Did you find it difficult to deal with that pressure or did you enjoy the attention at the beginning?

Rashford: I can’t say I’ve ever really enjoyed the attention off the pitch. That’s one thing growing up as a footballer that you never think about.

You always think about playing in the first team, scoring goals for United or at Old Trafford or any stadium, but you forget how your life can change overnight.

Things that you can do with your friends and family, the places you can go. It all changes and I probably wasn’t as prepared for that bit as I was the actual going on the pitch and playing.

So for me that bit was the easier bit. It obviously took a lot of hard work to get there but when the opportunity came up I felt ready to step up.

Murray: Do you have many of the senior or more experienced United players helping you, talking you through it at all?

Rashford: I did a little bit, once I started opening up to them a little bit more and having conversations not only about what happens on the pitch.

At the beginning it’s just football, football, football and you rarely speak to your team-mates a lot. Usually it’s about winning the next game or what we’re doing in training.

But when you settle into the team you get to speak about other stuff that. When I was an 18-year-old kid I knew that most of them had been through the experiences themselves.

They’ve lived it and know how to deal with, so I definitely used to ask questions about what to do next.

Of course you make your own decisions but you know that’s what I’d advise. I think that’s what helped me to mature and grow up a lot.

Murray: Did you follow much of the Women’s World Cup last year?

Rashford: I watched bits of it. It’s always entertaining. Growing up I used to play a lot of street football. All the time me and my friends would play in sort of abandoned houses, abandoned car parks.

There used to be 15, 20 of us that would go and I’d say that other than me the other best player was a female. It was a girl called Jodie. She used to play every type of street football that we used to do.

So I’ve always been interested in watching that and trying to follow people’s journeys. It’s important that it keeps trying to rise and more people should watch it.