Zak Benjamin Whitbread (born January 10, 1984) is an American-English retired professional footballer who played as a defender. Early life Although born in Houston, Texas, United States, Whitbread has spent most of his life in England and Singapore. He has lived in Runcorn for the majority of his life, except for the five years he spent in Singapore when his father, Barry Whitbread, was the coach of the Singapore national football team during the late 1990s. While in Singapore, Whitbread attended St Stephen's School and then United World College of South East Asia. Club career Liverpool While growing up in Runcorn, Whitbread was a fan of Manchester United, but joined Liverpool's Centre of Excellence at the age of eight, and then working his way through the Academy from under-15s through under-19s before joining the reserve team in 2003. His first match in a Liverpool jersey took place in 2003 in an exhibition match against Thailand during the club's Far East Tour. He came on to the pitch after the start of the second half, replacing Neil Mellor. Whitbread made his first team debut in the 2004–05 season, and played a number of games alongside Sami Hyypiä in Liverpool's 2005–06 UEFA Champions League qualification campaign. He spent much of the season on loan at Millwall. Millwall After signing for Millwall permanently on a three-year contract in June 2006, he featured frequently in the team's first eleven, starting 18 games for his new club in the 2006–07 season, before injuring himself in September 2006. The injury sidelined him for the rest of that season. Over the course of the 2008–09 season, Whitbread made 44 appearances, including the League One play-off final at Wembley Stadium, which Millwall lost 3–2 to Scunthorpe United. Norwich City Whitbread signed for Norwich City on a -year contract on January 8, 2010, making his debut in the 5–0 win over Colchester United on January 16 as a substitute for Chris Martin, but featured little thereafter due to an injury. Whitbread was given squad number 6 ahead of the 2010–11 season, switching from 31. He played 3 games in pre-season 2010–11 before he sustained another injury, which ruled him out of the start of the new league season. Whitbread was expected to return to training near the time of the international break in September, however a further setback kept him out until the new Year. Whitbread returned to full