Former Everton defender Sylvain Distin has admitted he considered retiring after his Wembley blunder against Liverpool in the 2012 FA Cup semi-final.
The Blues were leading 1-0 against their neighbours thanks to Nikica Jelavic’s goal but Distin’s misplaced back pass to goalkeeper Tim Howard gifted Luis Suarez and equaliser and the Reds went on to win 2-1.
The Frenchman admits that he thought of hanging up his boots after his infamous Merseyside Derby mistake.
Sport Witness quote him as replying to a question from L’Equipe on to name his stupidest moment.
Distin said: “It was at Wembley, in a cup semi-final when Everton lost to Liverpool.
“We were leading 1-0, and I wanted to play it safe by relying on my goalie. But I missed my pass and Luis Suarez took the opportunity to score.
“Again, it’s as if everything happened in slow motion: you hope that a defender will intervene, that the goalkeeper will come out well, that Suarez will miss his shot…
“Then I got screwed on Twitter. It was a difficult moment; I even thought about quitting football.”
Despite already being 31 years of age by the time he joined Everton from Portsmouth in 2009, Distin went on to make 210 appearances for the club before finishing his career back on the south coast with Bournemouth who go to Goodison Park needing a win to have any chance of staying up on the final day of the 2019/20 season.
Although Distin, now 42, was signed by David Moyes, he admits that the long-serving Scot’s successor, Roberto Martinez, once issued him with some instructions that he simply did not understand.
He said: “Roberto Martinez, at Everton, used to ask central defenders to move off centre when our keeper fired a six-yard shot, to give him short throw-ins.
“I obeyed that instruction, but not necessarily with pleasure because if we lost the ball in that situation, we were in great danger.
“It was funny to me because when I came to England, apart from Arsenal, all the Premier League teams would get the ball out of the way when they got to the six-yard line.”
