Theo Walcott has admitted he “should never have gone” to the World Cup in 2006 when he was selected as a 17-year-old by then England head coach Sven-Goran Eriksson.
After bursting onto the scene with Southampton, Walcott had joined Arsenal that January but was untested at senior international level, playing for the Under 21s in May leading up to the tournament days before appearing in the first team.
Walcott didn’t see any game time in Germany that summer, but Eriksson maintained the experience would stand Walcott in good stead for the future, but the newly retired forward admitted to Gary Neville on SkyBet’s The Overlap this week that it was a mistake to go.
“I’ve to be kind of nice [when talking about the media] if I want to go into it [media career]. Honestly, as a 17-year-old going to the World Cup for me, I should never have gone, I’ve said this.
“Essentially, you try telling a 17-year-old to go and say they’re not going to the World Cup for England, I wasn’t going to do that. I didn’t play in the Premier League at all, so I hadn’t asked of it, but the manager saw something in me, and in the end I didn’t play.”
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Walcott went on to have a successful career but also one which was blighted by injury, while he would eventually go on to represent the Three Lions 47 times.
Expanding further on that time of his career, he believes both England and Arsenal perhaps should have done more to protect him.
“Probably both I’d say, [on whether England or Arsène Wenger should’ve stopped him going to the World Cup] because I’d already played up an age for England, so I was already in the books of ‘keep an eye on this kid’ I suppose. I probably could’ve been protected in that sense.
“I knew Sven [Goran-Eriksson] was coming to training and I didn’t think anything of it. Obviously, you’ve got Ashley [Cole] and Sol [Campbell] and then I remember Arsène [Wenger] saying ‘he’s going to watch you’ and I’m like ok, alright, just thinking for the future type of thing. Then suddenly, that happened, and my whole life changed.”
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