The Premier League is good, the Champions League is great, but nothing, absolutely nothing, can rival the World Cup for drama, emotion and the sight of a footballer’s very fiber being examined. And that’s just the penalty shoot-outs.

South Africa 2010 will be my sixth World Cup and each one has been incredibly different. World Cups are like beautiful women, each with different charms.

Italia 90 was the Sophia Loren of tournaments, noble, handsome and with the promise of some magical evenings.

I based myself in Loren’s heartland, Rome, at a tiny pension around the corner from the Coliseum, and went on raiding parties to matches in places like Turin and Naples. I saw Diego Maradona play an unbelievable pass in the round of 16, the memory so strong I think about it most days. He saw Claudio Caniggia running toward the space behind Brazil’s defense and slotted this incredible ball for his teammate to score.

USA 94 was hot and sticky, particularly for those of us based in Detroit and Washington. I was well down the pecking order of my newspaper, The Independent, at the time so I received matches nobody fancied, partly because they were in rough areas.

The joy of going to undervalued matches is that the only way you can go is up. So when Saudi Arabia’s Saeed Owairan began dribbling through Belgium’s defense in Washington, little did my office expect a call from me saying, “Listen guys, I need a few more words as I’ve just seen one of the greatest goals of all time.” They checked on television, saw the quality and told me to let rip. The goal was voted the second top World Cup goal ever after Maradona’s second against England in 1986.

The problem with America, unlike Italy, is that the locals weren’t obsessed with “soccer.” I went on a radio show in Chicago to spread the good word about the “Beautiful Game.” It all seemed to be going well with the presenter asking fairly informed questions. “Right,” he said. “Let’s open up the phone lines and get some questions for Mr Winter.”

The lights on the switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree. This was encouraging, I thought, Americans must be interested. The first caller came on. “Mr. Winter, I’d like your view on a very important issue. What do you make of OJ?” My heart sank. I was being asked to comment on OJ Simpson, the football star who had spent the day driving down a freeway in Los Angeles being chased by most of the police in America. I got my jacket and left.

France 98 was good, particularly for the food and the wine, and also the great delight that was Michael Owen scoring that wonder goal for England against Argentina in St-Etienne. I currently have the privilege to “ghost” Michael’s newspaper column in The Daily Telegraph, and he’s as good a talker as he is finisher.

There had been a campaign going to get Owen in the starting XI, but Glenn Hoddle had resisted. One day in La Baule, England’s genteel training camp by the Atlantic, Hoddle was staging an important training session in which he was going to look at various options in attack. Now the media are banned from England training sessions, barring 15 minutes for filming and taking still photographs, so we have to find other ways of checking on the private part of the session.

Normally there are holes in the fences or gates in the stadium wall where you can spy on training. Hoddle had chosen his center in La Baule well, as it was impossible to look in. The walls were just too high. Frustrated, one of my fellow journalists went off into town to do some shopping and hopped on a double-decker bus. Being a child at heart, he went upstairs. To his great delight, the bus promptly drove past England’s training center; he had a clear view of the pitch for 10 seconds and noted Owen partnering Alan Shearer in attack. Even on cheap bus rides can scoops be found.

Japan/Korea in 2002 remains my favorite tournament. I was brought up by a Japanese lady in London when my parents were away traveling and have always been fascinated by Japan. England’s base was on Awaji Island, and we noticed a gunboat patrolling off the coast, presumably keeping the paparazzi from taking pictures of the players training. “Gun-boat Guard for Beckham” was the headline in every English newspaper the next day.

Very kindly, England conducted their press conferences late in the day, giving me all morning and most of the afternoon to get the 6 a.m. bullet train from our base in Kobe to Kyoto and spend hours wandering around the amazing temples and shrines.

My kids always demand presents when I’ve been somewhere exotic and I almost returned from Japan with six penguins. Journalists being journalists, we found a fantastic bar called “Little Feat” in Kobe which had six penguins in a glassed-off area. A TV presenter and I decided it would make a great news story if we liberated the penguins and tried to do a deal with the owner. The penguins worked out at $1,000 each, but we got the sixth one free. Unfortunately, we couldn’t work out how to get the penguins home, and the deal fell through, much to the disgust of my kids who were hoping to take a penguin into school for their “show-and-tell’’ classes.

Even now, English reporters talk about the penguins and particularly of the food we enjoyed. I have never, ever tasted sushi as good as in Sapporo. We particularly loved playing football at Kobe Rugby Club, who also allowed us to host a karaoke evening there. I dueted with a young BBC radio man doing Wham!’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. We were so awful that even I was booing us off by the end. He is now one of the best-known radio voices in the country and always shakes his head in horror when he sees me.

Germany 2006 was incredibly well-organized with the best collection of stadia in the world all filled and noisy. The fan parks were a great success, allowing supporters to mix and drink and watch games on massive screens. It was particularly enjoyable because of the Wags – the wives and girlfriends of the England players who would promenade up and down Baden Baden high street early in the evening. I went shopping with a couple I knew and they had only 500-euro notes. Even if they bought a T-shirt for 30 euros, they brought out another new 500-euro note. The whole situation had the feel of a holiday camp, and England duly went out after meeting their first significant threat, Portugal, in the quarterfinals.

England will probably blow up again on penalties in the quarterfinals in South Africa – but it will be fun reporting on them while they last. ❶

Henry Winter is the senior football correspondent for The Daily Telegraph.