It was McClaren who gave the City teenager his big break in international football and Richards was quick to acknowledge the part he played in his improvement this season and last.
He also admits England's players had to take their share of the responsibility for the nation's misery at not qualifying for Euro 2008.
At least Richards, who faced Reading at home on Saturday - alongside Croatian conqueror Vedran Corluka - was spared the booing that many of his England colleagues received on their return to domestic duty. But it is clear it will be some time before the 19-year-old fully recovers from the shock of the Wembley loss.
"I was sorry to see Steve McClaren sacked as England manager but, after we failed to qualify I wasn't shocked," he said.
"The players definitely thought he was the right man for the job, but when you are England manager you get assessed on results.
"He gave me my England debut and for someone to pick a defender for England at 18, like he did with me, takes courage.
"I feel sorry for him that results did not go his way because it is not just me that likes him - all the lads do.
"It is not easy to come into the England set-up at that age but Steve made me feel welcome and he put me on the map. I haven't spoken to him yet but when things cool down a bit I will tell him thanks for everything he did for me."
Complacent
Richards is not going to join the debate on who the next England boss should be. But insists a passport should have nothing to do with it - instead believing the best man for the job should get it.
"We will have to see who replaces Steve McClaren but to me it doesn't really matter as long as whoever gets the job can drive us forward, like he planned to," said Richards.
"I still can't believe what happened in our defeat by Croatia. I thought I felt bad after Manchester City's 6-0 defeat by Chelsea in October, but you can multiply that by ten - I was just devastated.
"I feel for the fans who witnessed that at Wembley. The players have to take as much responsibility as the manager for what happened.
"Because we only needed a draw I think we got a little bit complacent.
"There are plenty of `ifs, buts and maybes' - it's gone now - but there were players out there who didn't perform and I will hold my hand up as being one of them.
"The thing with England is that we have such good players, but we don't really seem to play to the best of our abilities and I don't know why.
"We've got some of the best players in the world and we seem to do it every week for the clubs. It's disappointing that we can't do it for our country."
What do you think? Have your say.
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kevin cairns, morecambe (27/11/2007 at 10:46)
Spike,, Whitefield (27/11/2007 at 11:04)
"There are plenty of `ifs, buts and maybes' - it's gone now - but there were players out there who didn't perform and I will hold my hand up as being one of them.
"The thing with England is that we have such good players, but we don't really seem to play to the best of our abilities and I don't know why.
"We've got some of the best players in the world and we seem to do it every week for the clubs. It's disappointing that we can't do it for our country."
Now that's honesty for you.... I think the bit Micha can't get his head round is the fact they get paid for playing for our country....Pride and the fans should be all the motivation needed.... Plus the fact that any decent side given the opotunity to knock out a rival, who could bite them on the arse in the tournament, means 110% effort "may just" get you that draw and the win is a bonus.....
Now they can focus on smashing them in the World Cup qualifiers...
P.S. Please not Anelka.....But in Sven and the team we put our trust........C'MON YOU BLUES!!!!!!
j the el, mancunia (27/11/2007 at 11:09)
not quite the quote he gave was it...?
Chapman (27/11/2007 at 11:13)
The Pope, Rome (27/11/2007 at 11:59)
bbcity Caboolture Australia (27/11/2007 at 12:16)
Paul Lake's Knee (27/11/2007 at 12:19)
I am a City fan first, I spend far more time and effort supporting them but I am also English and hope to see the English talent at City coming through to the national team.
CTID
S P In exile, Tameside (27/11/2007 at 12:24)
I am dissapointed England have not qualified but maybe it's a blessing in disguise if things are sorted out like the FA say (root and branch) maybe we will have a future England team wothy of a nations support.
Andrew (27/11/2007 at 12:34)
Andy(10), Isle of Man (27/11/2007 at 14:19)
Now is the time to build a team for the 2010 World Cup and the nucleus of that should come from the Under 21's. Of course there are several young players to add to that who have been included in the Full England Squad.
The 'root & branch' enquiry is unlikely to change very much, especially at the top level. Therefore, the whole overhaul will be cover-up of all that is wrong.
The best coaches of Under 10's, and upwards through Academy's should be involved because they are the custodians of the future talent available to English Football.
The hirearchy of the English F.A. should savagely pruned like a tree that is grossly top-heavy.
At the recent World Cup Draw some of the past greats were paraded; Platini(France), Beckenbauer(Germany) and Richards(England), - who the f*^k is/was Richards? Yet another of the faceless/nameless F.A. Fat-Cats.
CTID
Wigan Blue, Wigan (27/11/2007 at 16:11)
Not your fault Micah - we're depending on you to move us forward mate.
Chris, Chorlton (27/11/2007 at 17:41)
Thai Curry Pie (27/11/2007 at 17:52)
Norvaner, Vancouver (27/11/2007 at 19:56)
Pivo, Manchester (27/11/2007 at 23:43)
I would like to know why the blazers at the FA have walked away scot free from this debacle - why is Barwick still in charge of anything, he's a businessman. What qualification does that give him to chose an England manager? What do the appointees from county FA's, who also make up the committee, know about recruiting a suitable football person as England manager, they're only plumbers, accountants, etc., not football people. There are also football people in situ at the FA like, Brooking, who are also "yes men". We need to clean 'em all out and get some new and idependent thinkers in to provide the fresh ideas to move things forward.
Wunderkid (28/11/2007 at 00:33)
Don't know them? Ben Foster aside they're all part of the UNITED U-19 team who won the Champions Youth Cup in Malaysia this year, beating the equivalent sides of Juve, Barca, Flamengo and Porto.
What exactly was City's last Reserves or Academy title again? Cos' ours have won quite a few.
Wunderkid (28/11/2007 at 01:20)
Niko Krancjar over Owen, yes
over Rooney? no.
over Walcott, Lennon and Downing well, that's a bit hard to say.
Andy Johnson - definitely
over Crouch? probably
Balaban's hopeless
Olic-maybe
Petric -ditto
I think it's pretty clear that we have better players than Croatia and that only a few of their's would get into our team, whilst many of ours would get into theirs, but we just didn't play well enough as a team in some crucial games, and Croatia play well as a team pretty much all the time, (except against Macedonia, but then, we didn't fare too well against them either).
So I think the truth lies somewhere in between.
And England's youngsters can't be that bad considering our U-19 team consisting of mostly young English players won the Champions Youth Cup and England reached the semi of the Euro U-21 Championship, only losing on pens to the Netherlands, who ended up beating Serbia 4-1 in the final.
And our U-17 team beat Brazil in that World Cup, only to be thumped 4-1 by Germany, but there's no reason why England teams of the future can't always be challenging for World and European Championships.
In fact we probably have more reason to be optimistic now than we did before as we haven't won the Euro U-19 championship for 14 years, the U-21 championship for 24, and we've only ever come third in the U-20 World Cup, and done nothing in the U-19 World Cup.
Andrew (28/11/2007 at 14:23)
i feel blue : ), southampton (28/11/2007 at 22:07)
but how about some of the players taken some of the sticks for an overal team performance. im sick of the managers only getting the sticks, as sven would say. long live the king!
Wunderkid (29/11/2007 at 05:01)
A lot of the continental CL, Serie A and Primera Liga games I've watched are pretty dull spectacles, often the ones between the big clubs. Where I live, in Australia, the leading football presenter is Craig Foster, a former Socceroo captain who's ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH BARCELONA, EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM AND THE WAY THEY PLAY, and thinks that their definitely the best club in the world at the moment, but what he never mentions is the entertainment factor.
I watch a lot of their games and like I said, it's not the most exciting faire, in fact they were better to watch a couple of seasons ago when they won the CL.
Andrew you say that the Croatian players are "technically better" but how much of that is because of their footballing style and culture compared to ours?
If all the Premier League teams started playing the way a lot of non-British teams do, I bet you you'd get chants of "boring! boring!" etc.
Whereas if all the foreign teams started playing hyperfast-paced football, well, you'd probably get some complaints about that too.
I remember reading in "World Football" magazine that when the Argentine national team was coached by Jose Pekerman quite a few Argentine journalists said that there isn't enough variation of pace in the team and that they shouldn't just go all out at a million miles an hour.
Maybe it's just that our players are much bigger names than Croatia's, but Lampard and Gerrard have both done excellently for their clubs, as have Rooney Beckham, Owen, Hargreaves, in fact, all of them.
Most of the Croatian players play for clubs that aren't in the G-18 (or the "Nation of Domination" as I call them, my own team included, any chance of CiThai joining up?).
As weird as it sounds I think that Michael Owen is right, you wouldn't take any of their players over ours.
And as for comparing him to Eduardo, well, one's a 24 year old up-and-coming Brazilian with a lot of schkill and the other one's an incredibly injury-prone 27 year old striker with superb goal-sense, good schkill and excellent footballing nous.
So they're quite clearly 2 very different players with different roles in their respective teams.
Wunderkid (29/11/2007 at 05:13)
If you want to see what a good passer Fat Lump-o-lard is, just re-watch the Chelsea-CiThai game from this season, he put on a veritable "passing clinic" that day, same with Carrick for us, and Gerrard.
Wunderkid (29/11/2007 at 05:26)
So I suppose one of the big clubs will pick him up in Jan then?
You say that England has "one or two talented players" the whole team's incredibly talented!
And you say that Croatia have "one or two world-class players" well, that just depends on exactly how you define "world-class."