Steven Gerrard will win his 100th England cap against Sweden on Wednesday. Adam Bate believes the achievement is one to be celebrated despite the player's own frustrations over the past decade
Wednesday 14 November 2012 10:07, UK
Why Steven Gerrard should have everyone's respect and admiration upon winning 100 England caps.
The word 'highlights' doesn't quite do justice to the achievements of Steven Gerrard's Liverpool career. Not when you were man of the match in the greatest ever comeback in a Champions League final. Not when many on Merseyside refer to the 2006 FA Cup triumph as 'The Gerrard Final'. When the mood took him, the midfielder didn't so much take part in a football match as take over - seemingly bending the outcome of the game to his will. There have been moments in an England shirt too. Nineteen international goals prove that much. But without the trophies it appears even the man himself will see it as a time of unfulfilled promise. "The team and squad were built up as the golden generation and the expectation and pressure grew over the years," said Gerrard prior to Euro 2012. "We were expected to deliver in a major tournament and by deliver that means going to a final or winning a trophy." And yet, he isn't the first English superstar to endure an international career without silverware. Do Bryan Robson and Peter Shilton deserve to be seen as international failures? Are the achievements of Billy Wright and Sir Tom Finney in an England shirt now sullied by their involvement in the country's humiliating defeat to the United States in the 1950 World Cup? Sometimes distance provides perspective and, equally, longevity can be its own virtue. Gerrard is the sixth man to win 100 caps for England and there can be no legitimate suggestion he has done anything other than earn them. Even while the debate raged about how best to accommodate Gerrard and Frank Lampard in the same team, only the one-eyed and reactionary would have omitted either from the squad.