The 2016/17 season has already witnessed the retirement of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, two members of England’s so-called ‘golden generation’ of the 2000s, which promised so much and delivered so little on the international stage at major tournaments.
Of those players who were regular tournament starters between 2002 and 2010, when the one-time world champions repeatedly fell short every other summer, only a handful are still active today.
Ashley Cole is currently representing LA Galaxy in Major League Soccer, while Joe Cole is employed by Tampa Bay Rowdies in the second tier of US football.
Wayne Rooney remains a Manchester United player and England international, and the likes of Gareth Barry, Jermain Defoe, Michael Carrick and Peter Crouch — who, it should be said, were never really key components of the side anyway — are all still plying their trade in the Premier League.
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As would be expected, though, most of those to whom the golden generation tag was attributed, including Gerrard, Lampard, Ashley Cole, Michael Owen, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, David Beckham, Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell, have either retired or, in Cole’s case, left top-level European football behind.
Rooney is not quite the last man standing, however. John Terry, former England captain and his country’s 18th-highest appearance maker of all time, is in his 20th year as a senior Chelsea player.
The question worth asking now is whether it will also be his final one at Stamford Bridge.
At around this point last season, Terry looked to be nearing the end. After a 5-1 thrashing of MK Dons in the fourth round of the FA Cup in January, the man who was won 14 major trophies with his only permanent club announced that he was set to depart at the end of the 2015/16 campaign.
“Ideally I would have loved to stay, but the club is moving in a different direction,” Terry said at the time.
“I needed to know now like I have done every January and sometimes it takes a couple of months to get done. Unfortunately, it was a no.”
As it turned out, a one-year extension was signed in the middle of May, as the Chelsea captain agreed to a smaller wage packet and a reduced first-team role.
Four starts in Antonio Conte’s first four Premier League games in charge suggested that Terry, 36, was still as important as ever, but the central defender has only played once in the top flight since then — and that was a six-minute cameo in the 5-0 destruction of Everton, with his only other action in the FA Cup, and he will expect to be involved in Saturday’s fifth-round tie at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Terry has not kicked up a fuss, even publicly stating that he is glad he cannot get in the team because that means the starting XI are performing well, but he will surely not be content with sitting on the substitutes’ bench for another full season.
Conte will almost certainly continue with the 3-4-3 formation, and Terry does not possess the mobility or athleticism to play in one of the two wide centre-back berths.
David Luiz, meanwhile, has been impressive in the heart of the defence this year, and youngsters Kurt Zouma, Andreas Christensen and Nathan Ake will all hope to be in contention for a regular role by the time the 2017/18 season rolls around.
Terry has already made clear his desire to continue playing for another couple of years, with MLS or the Chinese Super League his most likely destinations.
Winning a fifth Premier League title in May, and possibly a sixth FA Cup winners medal, would be the perfect opportunity for the Chelsea stalwart to bow out at the top and bid goodbye — for now at least — to the place he has called home for the last two decades.
Huddersfield get glimpse of what could come
Just as the 1980s belonged to Liverpool and the 1990s to Manchester United, English football was dominated by Huddersfield Town in the 1920s.
Under the guidance of Herbert Chapman, Cecil Porter and Jack Chaplin, the Yorkshire side won three First Division titles and an FA Cup that decade, as well as reaching two more cup finals and twice finishing as league runners-up.
It would take something truly extraordinary for Huddersfield to replicate those achievements any time soon, but there is little doubt that the Championship club are on the up as they seek to return to the top tier of English football for the first time since 1972.
Having spent each of the previous four seasons languishing in the lower reaches of the second tier, Huddersfield are currently occupying third place in the standings.
With 15 matches left to play, they remain in the hunt for the automatic promotion spots — Brighton and Hove Albion are four points ahead in second, while table-toppers Newcastle United have a five-point advantage over David Wagner’s men.
The former Borussia Dortmund reserve team coach has done a fine job since taking charge in November 2015, first keeping Huddersfield away from the relegation zone and then mounting a promotion push this season.
Wagner, 45, has earned plenty of plaudits for his team’s style of play, too. Much like former Dortmund colleague Jurgen Klopp, he favours a brand of football focused on heavy pressing and high-tempo attacking, and the results have often been entertaining to watch.
Attention turns to the FA Cup this weekend, with Huddersfield having been handed a tie with Manchester City on Saturday after overcoming Port Vale in the third round and Rochdale in the fourth.
It is a match that has generated much interest, but the home crowd at the Kirklees Stadium will be hoping that this becomes just another regular fixture in the years to come.
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