It says much about the state of our national game when the likes of Emile Heskey are turning down the chance to play for England. The Aston Villa striker became the latest in a growing line of players to retire from international football after the World Cup, following in the footsteps of former team-mates Jamie Carragher, Luke Young and Paul Scholes.
After a three-match spell in which he has briefly lumbered to life under new manager Gerard Houllier, Heskey - who doesn't even appear in the Premier League Top 4 Goalscorers 2010/11 market - has suddenly found himself identified by Fabio Capello as the saviour of English football. Or, at least a one-off stop-gap to deputise for Wayne Rooney for the mismatch that is England v Montenegro. All this while the United forward sits in the doghouse pondering life, fatherhood and the price of cigarettes.
Can you really blame Heskey? The received wisdom is that playing for England is an honour; that most people would give their right arm to represent the Three Lions; that appearing for your country is the ultimate footballing accolade. But this is an antiquated line of thought not necessarily embraced by the modern day footballer.
Look at it from Heskey's point of view; with every passing international tournament England have looked less and less likely to win any silverware, (the Three Lions are 9.0 to win EURO 2012 and a 9.8 lay). Don Fabio's tenure, in particular, has been characterised by largely dull and uninspiring football, while each international break has been a new exercise in being patronised, told off and at times humiliated by the irascible Italian. For good measure, the upshot of such sacrifice has resulted in those happy chants of "You let your country down" ringing around the numerous Premier League grounds. Returning from the World Cup must have been like coming back from Dunkirk. Suddenly, a few days in the Canary Islands takes on greater appeal than a wet and hostile Wembley Stadium on 12 October.
The official reasons for premature international retirement generally take the form of players claiming they want to spend more time with their families and avoid burn-out from playing too much football. While the former argument is utterly redundant (most players have entire afternoons off to play with their kids/get their golf handicap down/win the World Cup on Pro Evolution Soccer, the latter is not. Few would argue that Ryan Giggs' decision to quit the international scene was a bad decision. Even players with a shot of winning international honours have passed up the opportunity of gracing the World Cup or European Championship stage as they've approached the twilight of their careers; Alessandro Nesta, Claude Makelele and Roberto Carlos to name but three.
They would never admit as much publicly but most players at the very top of their game care more about their clubs than their countries, particularly those plying their trade in their own homeland (ex-pats like David Beckham do tend to feel a nostalgic pang of patriotism). It isn't just because their employers pay their wages either; they simply have a stronger bond with team-mates and their own fans than they do their country of origin. Why swap the pampering and love of your club for unreasonable expectation and jingoistic volatility?
In the post-war years, international rivalries were serious business. Wounds were still sore, antagonism heartfelt. But nowadays what does international football really mean? Integration and international travel has made the world a smaller and more tolerant place; foreigners are no longer seen as aliens but colleagues, team-mates or friends from a different background. In golf, the huge national interest in the Ryder Cup is a reflection of how we now live in an era in which people feel as much European than they do British or English. In football, England's coaches aren't even English any more.
And in purely footballing terms, the standard of the football rarely compares with that of the Champions League. I have yet to conduct a straw poll but I would wager most fans would rather watch the club they support play in Europe than England play Montenegro.
Only this morning in a radio interview, Giggs, who captained Wales for the last time in 2007, said, "Playing for Man United for the first time was the greatest and proudest moment of my life." Not a mention of Wales there.
So I don't blame Heskey for calling it quits on England. International football is becoming increasingly obsolete, a fact underscored by the fact that England haven't called it quits on him.