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20. Ledley KING |
Ledley Brenton King (born 12 October 1980) is an English professional footballer who is currently playing his club football as a central defender and also can play defensive midfield for Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League.
He is the longest serving player at the club and captained Spurs for four years. He is currently contracted to Tottenham until 2012. Known for his pace, strength, heading, composure on the ball with both feet and ability in timing his tackles, he has been described as "the best central defender I have seen in my career" by Martin Jol[2] In March 2009 an article in The Times named King as Tottenham's 25th best player of all time.[3] In recent seasons King has been plagued by chronic knee problems, for which no effective treatment or remedy has been found, which prevent him from playing more than one game a week.[4] Instead of training with the rest of the squad King undertakes fitness exercises on his own.[5] His manager Harry Redknapp has called King "an absolute freak" for being able to perform at a high level despite not training.[6] King has also received praise from Jamie Redknapp, saying that “He is like a magnet for the ball, a thoroughbred of a defender, the best centre-half in the country.”[7] Thank you Wikipedia King's England debut came in a 1–2 loss to Italy in March 2002.[11] He was called into the England squad for the friendly against Portugal on 18 February 2004, and netted his first goal on his third appearance. King received his England call-up for Euro 2004 deputising for the injured John Terry in the opener against France in Portugal.[12] He also made a substitute appearance in midfield in the final group game against Croatia.[13] After featuring regularly in the qualifiers, King looked a likely participant in the England 2006 World Cup squad before fracturing a bone in his foot on 15 April 2006. Although not as bad as a similar injury affecting David Beckham, Gary Neville and Steven Gerrard, King's injury prevented him from being named in Sven-Göran Eriksson's squad.[14] "Ledley King is injured and he can't train. If you talk about centre-halves we are very well covered, so taking another one half-injured when we have so many good ones it is not a good idea." King played in the Euro 2008 qualifier against Estonia on 6 June 2007. King played 90 minutes and England won 3–0. Although he featured in Fabio Capello's first squad, he had to pull out through injury. Due to a chronic knee condition which preventing him holding down a regular place in the club side he was also not selected for England games for the rest of 2007 and during the whole of 2008. On 22 March 2009, King was given a recall by head coach Fabio Capello to the England team to play Slovakia and Ukraine.[4] However, two days later he was removed from the squad after being assessed by England's medical staff, who thought it was in his best interests to continue his personal training regime at his club, due to the chronic knee condition that he has.[15] Fabio Capello later said, in response to Harry Redknapp's objection to King's call-up, "Without doubt, King is one of the best central defenders in England. If he was fit, Redknapp would not need to make the journey. King could come with us." He later promoted King's cause again, saying that "We hope (he has an international future), because he's a very interesting player – one of the best centre-backs. But I don't know the future." On May 11, 2010 King was named in the England 30-man provisional squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup alongside fellow Tottenham Hotspur central defender Michael Dawson. He went on to score a headed goal against Mexico in the first preparation friendly on 24th May.[16] King made it into the Final 23 World Cup 2010 Squad for England. |
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