“Oh wow! Are you chucking that out there, yeah?” Jordan Henderson’s shocked response to the suggestion that this could be his last World Cup will have earned a wry smile from many in recent days, with his Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp inevitably being one.
“I’ve seen a lot of 36-year-olds play in World Cups so no reason why I couldn’t!” the Reds skipper insisted, prompting ITV’s Gabriel Clarke to defend his questioning by highlighting his use of the word, ‘probably’. This earned a laugh from Henderson, but behind the light-hearted response, the 32-year-old was being deadly serious.
And why shouldn’t he have been? At the 2022 World Cup, Olivier Giroud, Manuel Neuer and Diego Godin are three of the nine 36-year-olds taking part. Six 37-year-olds are also competing, including Luka Modric, Cristiano Ronaldo and Bryan Ruiz, while Thiago Silva is one of two 38-year-olds.
