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An excellent player when he hit his stride, Arsenal's tireless and distinctive midfielder Ray Parlour was deservedly given his England debut as a 26 year old in 1999 after eight years in the first team at Highbury and an admirable conquering of numerous personal issues. His only trouble now was, as a right-sided midfielder, he had to displace David Beckham as the first choice in that position and was never going to manage it. He came on as a sub for Steve McManaman in Kevin Keegan's first game in charge - a 3-1 win over Poland to re-ignite a stuttering European Championship qualifying campaign - and then made sub appearances as England drew their next two qualifiers.
He started alongside a centralised Beckham as England massacred Luxembourg 6-0 at Wembley and then bit-parted around the squad for the rest of the year, attaining seven caps by the time Keegan named his squad for the 2000 European Championship finals. Parlour missed the cut, and would ultimately not feature at, or even attend, a tournament for his country. He came on as a sub for Beckham in the infamous final game at Wembley against Germany (the photo above is during the game), after which Keegan resigned, and when caretaker boss Howard Wilkinson picked him to start the next World Cup qualifier in Finland four days later, Parlour responded by hitting the crossbar - the closest he came to an England goal, and indeed the closest England came to a goal that night, as it ended 0-0. He played in a friendly under Peter Taylor against Italy in November 2000 - the day Beckham was given the captaincy - and was then ignored by new coach Sven Goran Eriksson thereafter, despite continuing to play regularly and occasionally brilliantly for Arsenal until 2004. (Matthew Rudd)
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