it is as a man for whom exclusion beckons. Given his status at Real, England's World Cup squad should be comfortably within his grasp but McManaman, befitting someone who patrols the flanks, is drifting towards the periphery of Sven-Goran Eriksson's radar. The question is not whether McManaman, 30 a month ago, has the ability to force his way back into the centre of Eriksson's considerations but whether he has the will. In England's World Cup qualifier against Albania at St James' Park last September, four days after Munich, he made a fleeting appearance of such apparent apathy that even he was taken aback, never mind Eriksson." That performance saw McManaman banished from Eriksson's team, as that was his penultimate game; making just one substitute appearance after that in the critical qualifier against Greece in 2001. McManaman stated in his biography that he was struggling at the time working out if Eriksson rated him, saying that although he could see reasons why the coach dropped him (Eriksson picked Emile Heskey ahead of McManaman to start the Greece game and only brought McManaman on when England were still 2–1 down with 15 minutes to go), he (McManaman) wondered: "[I didn't understand it]; if he didn't rate me, why would he bring me on against Greece [when we were losing]?" This prompted some media commentators such as Brian Reade to suggest that it was McManaman's attitude, mentality or pride that Eriksson did not like and was the reason for his drop. Later that year, McManaman "chose not to play" in the game against Sweden by calling the FA to have himself dropped from the squad, before assistant coach at the time, Tord Grip said: "McManaman has never really played well for England". Following that, McManaman was not selected for another England squad. By early 2002, Eriksson apparently left a message on McManaman's answering machine to inform him that he was not going to be in the final World Cup squad. Despite the pleas of McManaman's Real Madrid team-mates Zinedine Zidane, Raúl and Fernando Hierro for McManaman's case, McManaman said he never heard from or met Eriksson again. Zidane went on to state England had made a mistake and described McManaman as one of the highest quality players he ever played with. Support for McManaman also came before the 2002 FIFA World Cup in the British media, after Sky Sports published an article based