JAKARTA - The England national team had to lose Raheem Sterling at the Qatar 2022 World Cup. In fact, the Chelsea player was not seen when the Three Lions won 3-0 over Senegal in the round of 16.
The English Football Association (FA) said Sterling had to return to England and missed the game due to "family matters."
Sterling reportedly returned to his country after receiving bad news from his family. The player's house was reportedly robbed by a number of gunmen.
According to reports in British media, Sterling's house was burglarized by an armed intruder while his family was at the house on Saturday night (UK time).
"Currently obviously his priority is to be with his family. We will support him and let him have as much time as he needs," said The Three Lion coach Gareth Southgate after the match, quoted by Antara via AFP, Monday, December 5.
"Right now he needs time with his family to deal with it and I don't want to put him under any pressure with that."
"Sometimes football is not the most important thing and the family must come first," said the 52-year-old coach.
Sterling is actually one of the players who is predicted to be the mainstay for England at the 2022 World Cup. He scored one goal in the 2022 World Cup as England won 6-2 over Iran.
However, Sterling began to be knocked out of Southgate's starting line-up for the quarter-finals even if he returned to Qatar due to good performance from Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Phil Foden.
Saka and Rashford scored three goals each at the 2022 World Cup, while Foden provided two assists in the win over Senegal.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
