Jamie Carragher: The Night I Knew My England Career Was Over

Jamie Carragher has recalled the night that he knew his international career was over.

Carragher was a Liverpool stalwart for over 15 years after making his Anfield debut in 1997, but establishing himself for England proved a more difficult task.

The former defender earned 38 caps for his country, but found himself below John Terry and Rio Ferdinand in the pecking order for the majority of his time with England, and he has now pinpointed the moment he knew it was time to walk away from the national team.

Carragher explained that he made his decision in June 2007, as he told the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet: ‘The first game that England played in the new Wembley was against Brazil. All week in training I was in centre back. Rio must’ve been out, so I was thinking to myself that I just played in the Champions League final, Liverpool’s player of the year. 

‘However, they get to the Friday and then I’m playing right back suddenly and someone else was in centre back. They played the game and, on the way, home in the car, I knew that I was done with England. 

Carragher was regularly behind John Terry (left) and Rio Ferdinand (right) in the England pecking order, and then struggled to get into the team when one of them wasn’t available

‘We still had another game midweek, so we went home for the night and came back. But I knew I didn’t want to play anymore on that journey back. I came back for the second game, and I still wasn’t right back, it was Wes Brown instead which was fine but that’s when I was done.

‘Steve McClaren came to me and said that he would play me the next game. I told him not to because it would feel fake, and I didn’t want that. If I’m being totally honest, I didn’t love being away. 

‘I was probably aged 29 then and I thought that if I’m not going away with England and I get myself ready for Liverpool, I can win that fight and finish my career at Liverpool. That was the biggest thing for me, to just stay at Liverpool.’

Looking back on his England days, Carragher believes one specific factor counted against him when it came to getting picked, and revealed his reaction to finding out he wasn’t in the Three Lions’ first reserve centre back after Terry and Ferdinand.

‘The problem that I think I have is that when people look at me, they don’t think centre-back,’ Carragher admitted. ‘I’m quite small for a centre back. 

‘Some people might have looked at me and thought otherwise. But if you look at England, Rio is 6’3 and lightning quick. Sol Campbell is massive. Even though I was playing well for Liverpool, my own stature and physicality probably didn’t help me in terms of picking me instead of someone else.

‘I was always seen as the squad man at England. I could be a right back, come in at centre back or they could take an extra striker to fill in. I get that but my problem was when John Terry and Rio weren’t playing. I won the Champions League in 2005, in 2006 we kept 33 clean sheets. We [Liverpool] were tough to play against and were good defensively.

Carragher also admitted he was left furious when he started getting overlooked for Sol Campbell (right)

Carragher (second right) argued that his Liverpool record was fantastic, but he was still not getting the nod over Campbell (third right)

‘I will never forget this. There’s four of us, and I remember either Rio or John Terry went down. There was panic on the bench, and someone shouted, “Sol get ready!” I was like, “F***ing hell”.”’

After walking away from England in 2007, Carragher made a shock U-turn three years later to play at the 2010 World Cup under Fabio Capello.

Carragher admitted that playing for Capello was the main reason behind him coming out of international retirement, but he was left ‘disappointed’ by how things played out with the Italian as England crashed out at the last-16 stage following a 4-1 defeat by Germany.

Carragher continued: ‘When [Fabio] Capello first came in, he was always constantly on to Stevie [Gerrard] because the number of centre backs wasn’t sorted. Stevie was always raving about him. 

‘Some of the players just thought, “What the f*** is he doing here?” Ledley King was in the tournament and someone else was injured on the last game of the weekend, so they asked me, but Liverpool hadn’t qualified for the Champions League. 

‘I just thought, “My age, would we get into the Champions League? F*** it, I’ll go play in the World Cup”. I did play a couple of games in the World Cup.

‘For me, it wasn’t to go back and play for England. It was to go and play for Capello and the whole Milan thing. Capello for me was like a God. But I was disappointed because I was used to Rafa [Benítez’s] structure. He was the [José] Mourinho before Mourinho wasn’t he. Everywhere he went he won and got the job done.’

Jamie Carragher was speaking on Stick to Football, brought to you by Sky Bet