Being left out of an England squad for a tournament is never easy, but one player managed to make the best of a bad situation...
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Former England striker Daniel Sturridge had revealed that he wasn't too disappointed with missing out on the Three Lions squad for Euro 2012 once he found out he'd be playing for Great Britain at the Olympic Games instead.
While Sturridge had just enjoyed a fruitful campaign for Chelsea in the 2011/12 season, scoring 13 goals in 43 appearances in all competitions from right-wing, Roy Hodgson decided not to select the young forward. By the time Hodgson had replaced Fabio Capello as England manager, Sturridge had fallen slightly out of favour with Roberto Di Matteo had Chelsea.
Indeed, he failed to come off the bench for the Blues in both the Champions League and FA Cup finals, highlighting why Hodgson decided not to take him to Ukraine and Poland that summer.
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Sturridge, though, didn't have to mull over being snubbed for the team - instead, Stuart Pearce selected him as part of the Great Britain squad set to compete at the 2012 Olympics. For Sturridge, getting that call up seems more worthwhile than if he had gone to the Euros.
"That was excellent," Sturridge explains to FourFourTwo about the Olympics call-up. "There was also the Euros that summer – I didn’t make that England squad, but I thought I should have been there.
"I’d scored a decent amount of goals that season and had a decent number of assists, so I felt as if I should have gone, but then the opportunity presented itself to go to the Olympics. It was like, ‘Wow, I have a chance to go to the Olympics now?! Of course I want to go!’ I was grateful.
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"I think it’s much cooler in my life story to have played at the Olympics – the only one that a British men’s footballer could play in. We made history."
Playing for Team GB at the Olympics also gave Sturridge the opportunity to reunite with a manager he had a great affinity for.
"Stuart Pearce was the manager who called me up, and he’s been such an inspirational person for me," Sturridge adds. "He handed me my first-team debut at Man City and also my England Under-21 debut.
"He’s had a lot of influence on my life and I’m grateful for his belief in me as a player. He was a really good coach and his team talks were always fiery!"
Ryan is a staff writer for FourFourTwo, joining the team full-time in October 2022. He first joined Future in December 2020, working across FourFourTwo, Golf Monthly, Rugby World and Advnture's websites, before eventually earning himself a position with FourFourTwo permanently. After graduating from Cardiff University with a degree in Journalism and Communications, Ryan earned a NCTJ qualification to further develop as a writer while a Trainee News Writer at Future.
