Danny Mills celebrated Gary Neville injury that ruled him out of the World Cup
A lot of players would do anything for the chance to play for their country in the World Cup, no matter how or why they were granted the opportunity in the first place
Danny Mills admitted he celebrated the news Manchester United legend Gary Neville would be ruled out of the 2002 World Cup through injury.
The former Leeds United defender was a surprise inclusion in Sven Goran Eriksson’s first World Cup squad as England manager. At the time, Mills was more of an outsider for the right back position, due to Neville’s regular brilliance under Sir Alex Ferguson.
However, the now Sky Sports pundit was forced to sit out of the tournament in Asia after breaking his foot after a hard challenge on Bayer Leverkusen star Ze Roberto in the 2002 Champions League semi-final. While this would have been devastating for Neville, Mills admitted the news greeted him in a jovial mood.
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“At that point, I had no real thought, in the beginning of May, that I was going to get anywhere near the England squad,” Mills said on the Under the Cosh podcast in March 2021. “I’d made my debut, and played in a few games, but I’d only come off the bench.
“So I thought ‘I have no chance of making the squad - my discipline had been horrendous. I was in a bar and then all of a sudden, Sky was on [the TV] and ‘Gary Neville’s broken his foot’.”
Mills added, “I was like ‘what?’ [and the news was] ‘Gary Neville is going to be out for a certain amount of time, broken metatarsal” before recreating his celebration at the time.
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“Now I’m thinking, ‘hang on a minute, I’ve got a chance of making the squad’ [but] not a single thought of playing. And then, towards the end of the season we’re coming from a training session and back in those days you generally watch the TV to find out when the squad was announced, to see who was in it.
“We came in from training and Ian Sylvester came out with a piece of paper saying ‘you four in the squad, Me, Rio [Ferdinand], Nige [Nigel Martyn] and Robbie [Fowler]. Mills played every minute of England’s matches at the World Cup.
The former Leeds United and Manchester City defender was even on the receiving end of a clumsy challenge from Brazilian ace Ronaldinho, which led to the Barcelona legend being given a straight red card. Mills would go on to finish his career having earned 19 England caps, but did not manage to break into the squad for any other major international tournaments.
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