Ruben Loftus-Cheek says he “completely forgot” about playing for England and was “just a fan” during his near seven-year absence from the national team.<\/b><\/p>\n
Loftus-Cheek’s last appearance for the Three Lions came in a friendly against the United States in November 2018 after he had been part of Gareth Southgate’s World Cup squad that reached the semi-finals in Russia the same year.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old midfielder ruptured his Achilles in 2019 playing for Chelsea in a friendly in the USA before the Europa League final, and subsequently dropped out of the England reckoning.<\/p>\n
He joined AC Milan in 2023 and has made 71 appearances for the Rossoneri in all competitions, scoring 11 goals and registering three assists.<\/p>\n
“When I ruptured my Achilles, I was on such a high [before it happened], so after that I had a hard time mentally,” said Loftus-Cheek.<\/p>\n
“But I was still young, I still had time to come back, so I wasn’t too low.”<\/p>\n
He added he had “got used” to not joining up with England because he had been away for so long.<\/p>\n
“You still want to push in club football with the hope of maybe getting a sniff,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But I just completely forgot about it and was being a fan of the team instead.”<\/p>\n
Loftus-Cheek said it took about two years for him to feel himself again after the injury.<\/p>\n
“If you have got good people around you it is going to help you so much, but the main thing comes from your self drive,” he said of his recovery.<\/p>\n
“That belief, to overcome challenges, is paramount in sport and in life – that you have this mentality in overcoming challenges.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruben Loftus-Cheek says he “completely forgot” about playing for England and was “just a fan” during his near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-394598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115140522477017669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}