{"id":4488,"date":"2014-07-21T16:42:10","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T16:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=4488"},"modified":"2014-07-21T16:42:10","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T16:42:10","slug":"steven-gearrad-retires-from-international-football-after-114-appearances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/steven-gearrad-retires-from-international-football-after-114-appearances\/","title":{"rendered":"Steven Gearrad Retires From International Football After 114 Appearances"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>England captain Steven Gerrard has retired from international football.<\/p>\n<p>The Liverpool skipper, 34, made 114 appearances in a career spanning 14 years.<\/p>\n<p>Gerrard led the national side in this summer&#8217;s World Cup, which saw them exit the tournament after just two matches, and revealed how he has &#8220;agnonised&#8221; over the decision since returning from Brazil.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This has been a very difficult decision, one of the toughest I&#8217;ve had to make in my career,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have agonised over this since coming back from Brazil and have spoken to family, friends and people close to me in the game before coming to this point.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Most importantly, Brendan [Rodgers, Liverpool manager] has been fantastic and obviously I have to look after my body as much as possible to ensure I can give everything when I take to the field.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To ensure I can keep playing to a high level and giving everything to Liverpool Football Club I believe this is the right decision, and having Champions League football back at Anfield is another big factor in my decision.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Kop idol will continue his strong relationship with The FA in a high-profile ambassadorial role with the governing body.<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cI\u2019d like to thank my family and friends for all their support throughout my England journey.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>England captain Steven Gerrard has retired from international football. The Liverpool skipper, 34, made 114 appearances in a career spanning 14 years. Gerrard led the national side in this summer&#8217;s World Cup, which saw them exit the tournament after just two matches, and revealed how he has &#8220;agnonised&#8221; over the decision since returning from Brazil. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4490,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488\/revisions\/4490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}