Shaun Wright-Phillips endured some troublesome moments in his England profession, not least in November 2007 when the nation did not qualify for Euro 2008.
On that day, England misplaced 3-2 to Croatia at Wembley in a vital recreation the place solely a win would guarantee they head to the event in Austria and Switzerland the subsequent summer time. Steve McClaren was additionally sacked, notoriously dubbed the “Wally with the Brolly”.
Wright-Phillips – a Chelsea participant on the time – began the sport towards Croatia as a winger flanking Peter Crouch. Nevertheless, with England 2-0 down at half-time due to early targets from Niko Kranjcar and Ivica Olic, McClaren changed him and Gareth Barry with Jermain Defoe and David Beckham.
England rallied within the second-half, bringing the scores degree via Frank Lampard and Crouch, however Mladen Petrić broke English hearts by scoring the Croatian winner. A desolate dressing room adopted.
“I used to be devastated,” Wright-Phillips tells FourFourTwo. “Typically, when issues like that occur, it hurts a lot that you simply don’t know what to do or assume.
“Individuals might imagine that you simply don’t care, but it surely’s not that – you’re simply in shock and hurting as a lot as they’re. It was a horrible feeling. Mentally it took fairly some time to get better, particularly because it was spoken about lots throughout the summer time.
“Watching the video games didn’t assist both, and it made it worse to assume that we should always’ve been there. However all of us needed to mud ourselves down and push ourselves tougher.”
Fabio Capello got here in as the subsequent England supervisor, the FA hoping the Italian’s strict strategies would offer glory for the gifted squad. Arriving as a embellished supervisor with groups corresponding to AC Milan, Actual Madrid, Roma and Juventus, many have been optimistic of England’s possibilities at World Cup 2010.
Nevertheless, issues did not fairly work out as anticipated, as Wright-Phillips describes when wanting again on the camp in South Africa.
“All of us had our personal rooms, however there was a typical space the place we’d play desk tennis or hang around collectively,” he explains. “It was a troublesome camp as a result of our households couldn’t come to the lodge, so we didn’t actually see them.
“I preferred Fabio Capello. He wished sure issues his personal means; I realized all through my profession that managers are utterly totally different from one another, and Capello was like that. We had to make use of olive oil on our toast, not butter, and we couldn’t have ketchup both.
“Germany beat us however Frank Lampard scored a objective that shouldn’t have been disallowed – if it had been 2-2 at half-time, the sport might need swung our means. However the Germans stepped issues up a notch, particularly with their younger gamers coming via – the likes of Mesut Ozil and Thomas Muller grabbed the sport by the jugular and put away the possibilities that they had.”
