Walcott admits 17-year-old self should never have gone to the 2006 World Cup

Theo Walcott has admitted he should not have been part of England’s 2006 World Cup squad, describing his shock call-up from Sven-Göran Eriksson as ‘too much, too soon’ for a 17-year-old who had never played a minute of Premier League football.

Walcott had joined Arsenal from Southampton for £12 million in January 2006 but had yet to make his debut for the Gunners when Eriksson named him in the squad for the Germany tournament. The forward, who had scored five goals in 23 appearances during his time at Saints, went on to become England’s youngest-ever player at the time — yet did not play a single minute throughout the entire competition.

“You’ve just turned 17. You’ve just gone to Arsenal from Southampton in the Championship. You haven’t yet played in the Premier League,” Walcott told the Daily Mail. “For me, no, I shouldn’t have gone.”

Now reflecting as a parent himself, Walcott questioned where the duty of care was for a teenager thrust onto the world’s biggest sporting stage. He credited teammates Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole with helping him navigate the experience.

“Big Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole looked after me,” he said. “I saw them both recently and thanked them because they didn’t realise what they did for me at the time.”

Beyond the football, Walcott described the intense media scrutiny that followed his call-up, with photographers camped outside his family home in the Berkshire village of Compton throughout the night. He recalled how his neighbours intervened to shield him and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Mel — blocking in a photographer’s car to prevent him getting a shot.

“They blocked his car in, but he was threatening to run them over if they didn’t get out of the way for the picture,” Walcott said. “Just to get a picture. Putting people in danger. Fully grown men following a boy and a girl. When you voice it out loud now, you think, ‘Wow. How was that OK’. It was scary, and it was daily.”

Walcott made his Arsenal debut at the start of the 2006-07 season and went on to become a key figure for both club and country, earning 47 England caps and scoring 8 international goals across a career that also included spells at Everton and Southampton.