Aaron Lennon Leads Tottenham World Cup 2006 Quartet
Aaron Lennon made his senior England debut on 3 June before playing at world cup 2006 in Germany. Tottenham Hotspur had four players involved across England and South Korea, with Paul Robinson, Michael Carrick and Young-Pyo Lee also featuring on football’s biggest international stage.
Aaron Lennon and Paul Robinson
Lennon joined Tottenham Hotspur in the summer of 2005 and earned his first senior cap in a World Cup warm-up against Jamaica. He then appeared as a late substitute when England beat Ecuador in the Round of 16, before coming on for David Beckham on 52 minutes in the quarter-final against Portugal.
England were held to a 0-0 draw and lost on penalties, with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring the decisive kick. Lennon’s World Cup role was brief but direct: one late appearance in the knockout rounds, and one more in the match that ended England’s run.
Robinson’s path ran through every England game in Germany. He played against Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago, Sweden, Ecuador and Portugal, and kept four clean sheets in five matches after joining Tottenham from Leeds in the summer of 2004.
Michael Carrick in Germany
Carrick arrived in Spurs’ midfield after helping Tottenham finish fifth in the Premier League in 2005/06, then earned a place in Sven Goran Eriksson’s squad for Germany. His tournament involvement was narrower than Robinson’s, but he still started with him in England’s 1-0 win over Ecuador in the Round of 16.
That was Carrick’s only World Cup appearance. He moved to Manchester United later in 2006, after a Spurs spell that also produced 34 England caps.
Young-Pyo Lee’s group stage
Young-Pyo Lee became the first South Korean player to wear the Tottenham shirt when he joined from PSV Eindhoven in the summer of 2005. At the 2006 World Cup, he started all three group games for South Korea.
South Korea came from behind to beat Togo 2-1, drew 1-1 with France and then lost 2-0 to Switzerland, which ended their progress. Lee later featured in his third World Cup in South Africa in 2010, and his time in Germany added another layer to Spurs’ list of players on that tournament stage.
Tottenham’s World Cup 2006 group was not built around one star turn. Lennon, Robinson, Carrick and Lee each had a different role, from a first senior cap to a full set of starts, and the club’s list shows how widely its squad spread across two national teams in Germany.
