Michael Carrick on the art of passing and what England are currently missing

Carrick is the type of player so conspicuously missing from the England national team right now, as Gareth Southgate has bemoaned

For Michael Carrick, it wasn’t “the elation of scoring a goal”, but it was “perfect” in a different way. It was the quieter satisfaction of having played a pass exactly as he meant it, and it for to lead to a meaningful moment.

As a highly pensive player who admits he sees every single pass as little building blocks in the grander structure of a game, Carrick says there are two such balls that reached the standards he set for himself.

“One was for Chicha [Javier Hernandez] against Chelsea in the [2012-13] FA Cup at Old Trafford, over the top and he scored a header,” Carrick tells the Independent.

“Then Berba [Dimitar Berbatov], Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford in the [2008-09] FA Cup… they were just two moments when you see the pass and you execute it, and it plays out exactly like that picture you had before it happens. Sometimes you play a pass, and you get there, but it wasn’t quite exactly how you see it, or it didn’t fall how you like it.”

The mindset behind this is evidently as perceptive as the passing.

“It’s quick. You’re talking like [clicks fingers three times] a flash. But that’s something I enjoyed. That’s the game, the challenge, trying to think ‘what am I am aiming to do here? Where do I want to pass the ball? What area do I want to get it in?’ Then it’s instinct… but that’s just me, that’s how I was made, that’s my make-up.”

It is also a make-up of player so conspicuously missing from the England national team right now, as Gareth Southgate has so bemoaned. Carrick is speaking in an interview with the Independent, expanding on the insight explored in his new autobiography, ‘Between the Lines’. It is timely the book is released in the week Southgate’s side again face Croatia, and a team who in the World Cup so emphasised the type of control that England were missing; the type of player England were missing in Luka Modric.

It is all the more frustrating that Carrick himself was so underused for England, even though every such player from top level - from Xavi to Xabi Alonso, who he professes huge admiration for - articulated such overt respect for him.

How Southgate could do with Carrick now. He is exactly what England are missing.

So the obvious question: why is that type of player missing? Why hasn’t England produced more of this type of player?

“It’s a tough one,” Carrick says now. “Ten, 15 years ago, there was a real clamour for players that take the ball and dribble. We didn’t have anyone like that. Then all of a sudden, we’ve got dribblers, [Marcus] Rashford, [Raheem] Sterling, and now it’s we haven’t got a passer. It’s just kind of… cycles.”

Carrick became a key player for Manchester United (Action Images via Reuters) (Reuters)

And yet one potentially deeper answer for the lack of a passer now comes from a question about their use of him then. Carrick was used behind Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard in the 2006 World Cup last-16 game against Ecuador but, despite its success, England never really returned to it.

Does that not frustrate him?

“Maybe, yeah,” he concedes. “I never really thought it would be used more, to be honest. I would have liked it, but I don’t think it was really on the cards. I don’t think it was the English style at the time. One game, brilliant, everyone’s saying it but, actually, I don’t think people really wanted it.

“They wanted a more gung-ho type, that’s what it was. Scholesy is the one for me, I think. He's so underused for England. It's incredible. But... to play him on the left wing for what he had just was crazy for me, it's one of them things.”

The midfielder in action at the 2006 World Cup (Getty)

As Carrick intimates here, and further touches on in his book, his controlled approach just wasn’t the English culture.

He does feel that culture is changing, in part thanks to Southgate - “I think Gareth has changed significantly the feel of the squad, the style of the team, playing out from the back” - but it is telling that his relaying of his formative years reveals a style that wasn’t honed in an academy or by coaching. It was almost self-thought, if also infused by a family tradition.

“In a way, I feel there’s a Carrick style of playing,” he says in the book. “Granddad was always on to me about ‘pass it’ and ‘switch it’. It’s what he taught Dad, and he was really keen to pass that on to me. Like Granddad, Dad always told me to ‘pass, pass, pass to someone else who’s in a better position’. ‘Play for the team’ was massive for Dad, too.”

This produced a kid who then became entranced by his Dutch opponents’ willingness to play the ball out of the back when appearing at an under-12 tournament for Wallsend Boys Club.

Carrick always possessed a touch of class (Getty)

“It was so clear for me at that time, they were playing a total different style of football to us,” Carrick says now. “I'm not saying it was better or worse, it felt like they thought about the game a little bit more.

“We didn't get beat, but it felt like they were better, almost like a moral victory. We were a bit rough and ragged, street-footballery type, all that, and they were a bit more calculated and a bit more precise.”

The irony is that it feels like Carrick became such a continental thoughtful player through the street, through his own individual practice. He developed despite that culture. The young Carrick would play one-twos off lampposts for hours on end.

“I loved passing, just feeling the ball against my foot,” he says. “I think any individual, if you enjoy certain things, you tend to practice it more. That was kind of me. Some lads were dribblers, some lads just loved scoring goals, whereas I enjoyed and took pride in practicing my passing and that. That's how it was.”

Scholes was another player underused at international level (Getty)

It’s led to a highly refined view of the game, as Carrick reveals in his autobiography.

“I really enjoy thinking two or three steps ahead, about how to drag the opposition out of position,” he writes.

“It’s like a game of chess where you’re trying to open up your opponent. For example, a lot of the time, a midfielder will pass it to a full-back and then the whole stadium claps and goes ‘good pass’. I’ll be thinking, actually, it was pointless. I prefer to keep hold of it and, by the time someone moves, I’ll play it.

“I’ll try to control the opposition sometimes with a soft or fast pass… It’s about trying to move the opposition about. An unbelievable 60-yard pass to the winger might be easy for the defence to deal with, whereas a five-yard pass through their two midfielders can suddenly put their whole defensive shape in a mess, asking questions, like does the centre half come out or does he not? Passing forwards between the defensive lines has always been my biggest skill. A lot of it is down to timing and disguise. It’s not a highlight and it’s not glamorous.”

It’s also a key building block of the modern game.

But one that really does require thought.

“It is like that, but as long as you understand that actually you're doing that pass for a reason,” Carrick expands upon to the Independent. “It's not just a case of passing just to make a pass. Even if it's back, it’s for a reason, to start again, move it on… but if you're just passing - passing, passing - blind, without actually realising what you're trying to achieve, that's a different scenario. That's the footballing brain that comes into it.

“I think it's something you learn as time goes on, what works, what doesn't work. There might be a pass I thought was good when I was a younger, whereas maybe if you asked me now about a similar pass, I'd say actually, you know what, it's not a good pass that, this one's more effective. That's just kind of learning, that's experience.

“It's the quiet satisfaction when you know you've made that little pass. And it's what you wanted, and you set it up somewhere and dragged them out of position then played it. It’s that satisfaction to think 'yeah', that was good.

It's minute detail in the grand scheme of a game but all of them little things add up you know.”

All of those passes add up.