England Retirements Baffle Brooking

Brooking looks on...

Sir Trevor Brooking has reacted with incredulity to the growing number of players who have decided not to make themselves available for England.

The Tottenham Hotspur striker Peter Crouch is believed to have decided he will not play for his country again until Fabio Capello is replaced as national manager, after growing disillusioned with life under the Italian. The Blackburn Rovers goalkeeper Paul Robinson and the Manchester United defender Wes Brown retired at the start of this season and the Birmingham City goalkeeper Ben Foster is on a "sabbatical", to concentrate on his club career.

There have been even younger players who have turned their back on England, most notably the Tottenham winger David Bentley, who rejected the chance to play in the 2007 European Under-21 Championship.

Brooking, who is the Football Association's director of football development, told BBC Radio 5 Live: "No matter what people think about individuals, it is about playing for your country. You turn up regardless. I would have turned up if I was number 23 in the squad. We had one or two issues with age group teams. There appears to be a reluctance with one or two youngsters to get that tournament experience.

"I come from a generation where I couldn't even contemplate such a thing. I find it amazing. There are great rewards out there. You can become a multi-millionaire as a club player without playing international football. But international football is about individual pride and wanting to perform at the highest level. If I got picked at 41, I would have played, even if I thought I would make a fool of myself. I just wanted to play for my country."

Brooking is reluctant to write Crouch off and wants to wait for the full facts to emerge. However, the 30-year-old has not been one of Capello's preferred strikers. Crouch has started five games in Capello's 37-match reign and he did not make the bench for yesterday's 2-2 draw with Switzerland at Wembley, even though England had only three fit strikers.

Crouch has also been one of the team's most reliable goalscorers, scoring eight times under Capello, as part of an overall tally of 22 which puts him joint-16th on the all-time list. He went to last summer's World Cup in South Africa, where he made two brief substitute appearances.

With Liverpool's Andy Carroll and Manchester United's Wayne Rooney likely to be available for the August friendly against Holland, it seems Crouch was likely to be pushed further down the pecking order. 

However, if his international "break" is confirmed, it will raise further questions about Capello's handling of players, as well as reducing options in an area in which England are not particularly blessed anyway, given that Kevin Davies and Jay Bothroyd were both capped earlier this season.