Steven Gerrard's reaction to Theo Walcott making 2006 World Cup squad

It’s quite remarkable that England’s ‘Golden Generation’ were unable to win a single major international trophy.

In the 2000s, the Three Lions possessed some of the very best players on the planet, including Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, John Terry, Ashley Cole and more.

But despite having an array of superstars in the squad, England always flattered to deceive at tournaments.

The 2006 World Cup is a prime example of that. Sven Goran Eriksson’s side stuttered through the group stage, scraped past Ecuador in the last-16 and were then knocked out by Portugal in the quarters.

It was a tournament to forget for England and some of the decisions made by the nation in the summer of 2006 remain baffling to this very day.

One of the most bizarre was the call to include a 17-year-old Theo Walcott, who’d joined Arsenal just a few months prior, in the squad instead of taking a fifth senior forward.

In his autobiography, Gerrard spoke about the questionable decision to include Walcott and his words are rather eye-opening.

“A few decisions were wrong, like not taking five strikers,” the Liverpool legend wrote, per BBC. “He certainly shouldn’t have brought Theo Walcott to Germany.

“Not only were England embarking on an arduous World Cup campaign with only four forwards but one of them was Theo Walcott.

“I almost fell over when I heard. Now let’s get one or two things right about Theo. He’s a nice lad and one day he will mature into a very good player.

“But he had no right to be in Germany. None at all. I was gobsmacked to find him on the plane.”

The ‘Golden Generation’ were just destined to fail, weren’t they?

Injuries to key players at the worst possible times, club rivalries in the squad,