Tournaments can draw the curtain down on international careers. If Jordan Henderson looks at some of his midfield sidekicks, he can see that. Steven Gerrard retired from England duty after the 2014 World Cup, James Milner after Euro 2016. Henderson is 32 now, some 13 years older than Jude Bellingham, and the second-oldest player in Gareth Southgate’s squad, three weeks younger than the age-defying sprinter Kyle Walker.
If there was a temptation to think that he would concentrate on club football after the World Cup, think again. “As a kid, one of my dreams was to play for England, my biggest dream,” he said. “That will never change.” It’s that attitude which explains his unexpected presence in the England squad – the midfielder was in contact with Southgate during his recovery from a hamstring problem, talking himself back into contention even before Kalvin Phillips was ruled out.
Henderson’s first taste of tournament football came in Euro 2012, sufficiently long ago that while he is the only member of Roy Hodgson’s party who is still playing for his country, two – Gerrard and Scott Parker – have managed in the Premier League this season. A decade on, he does not see the World Cup as his final opportunity to win silverware with his country. “I hope not,” he said. “I still feel good. I wouldn’t look too far ahead – I don’t think there is any need to – but it is another huge opportunity.”
There are several elements to his rationale for delaying retirement. Along with Walker, Henderson may be England’s senior citizen, but Cristiano Ronaldo is a particularly prominent example of a player prolonging his international career into his late thirties. While the Liverpool captain is returning from a spell on the sidelines now, he played 57 games for his club alone last season.
“I look at some players still playing internationals at 36 and 37,” he explained. “So it just depends on how you feel physically and I feel very good. I think last season I played more games than anyone else in Europe. So physically it’s not an issue and I’m still excited being here with England.”
Life at Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, with their famously intense approach, means Henderson can’t afford to slow down. Running power has always been a feature of his game and he believes it remains the case. “I don’t know if I’m fitter than I was when I was 20 because I was pretty fit then,” he said. “But I feel like I’m in such a good spot.”
It helps that he eschews alcohol during the season, an idea that used to make him an anomaly. “I’ve never done that since I was a kid and always eaten the right things,” he said. “It was always in me as a kid. I never wanted to go out drinking or doing anything like that. It was always football, football, football.
“If we go back to when I was starting my career, I was probably an exception. Whereas now when I look, I’d say the exception is to drink. A lot of players don’t drink in general. A lot of the Liverpool squad don’t drink.” Win or lose, they aren’t on the booze.
England had little success to toast in his absence. The exception to Henderson’s heavy workload came in the summer. He was rested from the four Nations League games that produced two draws, two defeats and the worst spell of Gareth Southgate’s tenure. “The players and the manager would be frustrated and disappointed with the summer as well so sometimes you know you take criticism on the chin,” Henderson added. “There are reasons behind that: watching the games, I could see physically and mentally a lot of the lads looked really tired with the long season they’d had.”
Henderson’s argument is that they should use their wretched June as motivation. He may have an added incentive at the World Cup, and not because this could be his last tournament. While England reached the Euro 2020 final, Henderson was a bit-part figure, injured at the start of the competition and then unable to dislodge Declan Rice and Kalvin Phillips from the side. If England’s trip to Italy on Friday is a rematch of that Euro 2020 final, it is also a first opportunity to make amends for June’s historic 4-0 thrashing by Hungary.
“Bad defeats you never get over properly,” Henderson added. “It will always stay inside, but that can be a good thing, you can use that as extra motivation, a little bit of burning desire to put things right and hopefully we can do that going into the tournament.
“It is not just to put it right, it is about preparing for the biggest competition in the world. Excitement, adrenalin, the last experiences we have had, we want to create more memories, go one step further, to do that you need to be 100 per cent, and if we do that we have a very, very small chance.” But not, he thinks, his last chance.
