Rio Ferdinand has admitted that failing to make England's Euro 2000 squad provided him with the motivation to start taking his career more seriously.

The defender broke the British transfer record when he signed for Leeds from West Ham in November 2000. Yet only a few months earlier, he was not picked for the European Championships co-hosted by the Netherlands and Belgium.

Indeed, although he was named in four World Cup squads throughout his playing days, Ferdinand never featured at the Euros.

When looking back on missing out on Euro 2000, Ferdinand told the High Performance Podcast last year that his exclusion made him re-assess his commitment to the sport, and led to him working harder than ever to prove his doubters wrong.

He said: "Everyone in their life, there's a moment where there's a decision to be made. And my moment came. So yeah, like you say Leeds and West Ham, especially the early part of Leeds, I overindulged in the nightlife - all the kind of the things that come with being a professional footballer.

"And the Euros came about, Kevin Keegan was manager, and I didn't get picked. I went away that summer - holiday - and I just vowed 'this isn't happening again.' And I trained that summer. That's when I first ever started training in the summer before I went back to pre-season.

"So I was training probably for two weeks before that on my own. So when I got back into training I was fitter than everyone else, so all of a sudden, straight away the manager's going 'oh.'

"That November, I've got to move to Leeds after being left out of the team, broke the British transfer records, and then it just continued going, escalating from there. So it's having that moment where you go, right."

He would go on to enjoy remarkable success, winning six league titles and the Champions League with the Red Devils during his 12-year stay at the club.

For much of this time, he was an England regular, receiving 81 caps for his country. His final appearance came in 2011, 14 years on from his debut for the Three Lions.

Given the transfer fees that he commanded and the trophies he accumulated, it may seem that Ferdinand's career was about as perfect as it gets.

Yet Ferdinand's recollection of this setback at the turn of the millennium shows how he did suffer bitter blows along the way, and things could easily have gone in a different direction.

Instead, he dedicated himself to the game, and the rewards duly arrived.

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