'I was heading to World Cup with David Beckham before life-threatening road crash' - The Mirror

Former Premier League and League Cup winner Matt Jansen recalls agonisingly missing out on the World Cup and the crash that changed the course of his career

The summer of 2002 should have been a breakthrough moment for Matt Jansen. But it started in heartbreak and ended with him fighting for his life.

The striker was among English football's most promising talents in the early 2000s and had just helped Blackburn Rovers to League Cup glory. Manchester United had already come calling, not once but twice, and he was on course for a place in England's World Cup squad.

He was so near to boarding that plane, he'd even bagged an invitation to David Beckham's pre-World Cup bash. But a series of devastating twists of fate would throw his career off course.

Jansen, 47, now a coach at Stockport County, had been set to feature in a friendly against Paraguay but was sidelined when a nasty case of gastroenteritis left him hooked up to a drip, denying him a crucial opportunity to catch Sven-Goran Eriksson's eye.

He still secured his place in the preliminary squad, only to be devastatingly axed at the last moment when Eriksson decided to take an additional defender, Martin Keown, instead. Eriksson had even assured Graeme Souness, his boss at Blackburn, that he was making the trip, only to change his mind.

"We played Liverpool the day before the squad was announced," said Jansen in association with Palantir Financial Planning. "Sven had called Graeme before the game and said, 'Make sure he doesn't get injured because he's going to the World Cup.'

"Graeme told me that, which gave me a bit of buzz before the Liverpool game. We lost 4-3 but I scored and played pretty well. I'd got my suit, my invitation to David Beckham's going-off party. The next day, the squad was announced and my name wasn't in it. Souness couldn't believe it, I couldn't believe it.

"The reason was that they decided to take Martin Keown as extra cover in defence rather than myself. It was devastating. I never won a senior cap, which is frustrating because it's your boyhood dream to play for your country. But I thought it was coming. I was only 24 and my career was progressing."

It should have been a temporary setback for Jansen but, later that same summer, he sustained life-threatening injuries in a scooter accident while holidaying in Rome with his girlfriend, who is now his wife. Following his battle for survival, he would eventually return to action but was never quite the same player.

He recalled: "Unfortunately, the accident took its toll. I was in coma for week, brain hemorrhages, I was in a really bad way. From there, I couldn't really recapture the heights of my career."

Jansen eventually moved down the divisions before transitioning into coaching and managing non-league Chorley, then joining Stockport's recruitment department in 2020. He subsequently became assistant first-team coach under Dave Challinor, playing a crucial part as County climbed from non-league to League One.

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