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David Beckham has offered his take on why he believes that England's 'golden generation' failed to win any trophy in 2000s.
The Three Lions failed to go beyond the quarter-final stage in a major international tournament. This was despite having some of the world's best players scattered all over the pitch.
Before Gareth Southgate took England to the 2018 World Cup semi-final and the 2020 Euro final, the last time the Three Lions reached a major semi-final was under Terry Venables in Euro 96.
In 2017, three members of that squad, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand, discussed the same on BT Sport.
They all agreed that their club rivalries hindered them when it came to international duty. Former Manchester United defender Ferdinand in particular claimed he didn't want to sit near Liverpool players due to the rivalry.
However, speaking on The Overlap YouTube channel to Gary Neville, Beckham disagreed with those sentiments. The former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder captained England in three tournaments between 2002-2006 under Sven-Goran Eriksson. Beckham claimed (per Give Me Sport):
“I’ve heard numerous people come out and say, well, there was cliques and some players didn’t talk to other players. I don’t care if players didn’t talk whilst they were eating dinner, whilst they were eating lunch, while they’re in the changing room, the moment you get on that pitch, I don’t care if Stevie G’s in a better position than me I’m gonna give him the ball."
He added:
"Simple. You’re footballers and you’re professional. It’s not about cliques, it’s not about Liverpool players not liking United players.”
England will face USA, Wales and Iran in the FIFA World Cup in Qatar later this year.
David Beckham admits England WAGs went "too far" at 2006 World Cup
Arguably England's greatest opportunity to win football's biggest tournament since their only victory in 1966 was the 2006 World Cup in Germany. It will forever go down as arguably one of the nation's biggest missed sporting opportunities.
They had world-class players as aforementioned, as well as Wayne Rooney, Ashley Cole and John Terry. However, even with all of them hitting their peaks around that time, England lost on penalties to Portugal in the quarter-finals.
Plenty of blame was placed on the wives and girlfriends (WAGs) for stealing the spotlight from the players, something which Beckham agreed with.
The 47-year-old said (as per The Mail):
"Looking back, that whole culture - there was a lot of attention around that and whether people behaved themselves in the right manner, I don't know. Even Victoria - she's the first to say now - what was I doing, what was I wearing, why would I do that? It did [go too far]."
He added:
"There was more spoken about the WAGs than football. at the time, players want to focus on the tournament. It went too far, but I do believe having the WAGs and family around is a good thing."
