Steven Gerrard

Written by Matt Pitt

England Player Profiles

Steven George Gerrard, MBE, was born in Whiston, Merseyside on May 30, 1980.

As a child he played for his local football team, Whiston Juniors, before joining the Liverpool youth academy at the age of nine. After numerous trials, including one at Manchester United, which in his autobiography Gerrard revealed he only took part in so Liverpool would sign him up, he finally put pen to paper on his first professioanl contract with Liverpool on November 5, 1997.

He made his first team debut a year later when he came on as a last minute substitute for Vegard Heggem in a match against Blackburn Rovers and has since gone on to make over 500 appearances for the Reds, scoring 129 goals.

Gerrard made his international debut in May 2000 in a match against the Ukraine and scored his first goal in England colours in the famous 5-1 demolision of Germany on September 1, 2001.

To date Gerrard has earned 78 England caps and has found the net for his country on 16 occasions and has even captained the team back in 2008 but lost back-to-back games against Russia and Croatia which ultimately saw England fail to qualify for Euro 2008.

Under Fabio Capello's rule, Gerrard captained England again on a trial basis but the Italian decided to go with Chelsea defender John Terry instead. he then appointed Rio Ferdinand as vice-captain though after the recent John Terry saga, Gerrard has been reinstalled as England vice-captain.

So far this season, Gerrard has played 38 games for Liverpool, scoring 9 goals and picking up six yellow cards along the way.

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