AS has been the case with other members of English football's so-called 'golden generation', the immediate reaction to news of Rio Ferdinand's international retirement is to bemoan what might have been.

Touted as the ball-playing defender who would transform England's ability to control the pace and tempo of closely-fought matches at international level, Ferdinand never quite lived up to his billing despite winning 81 caps and appearing in three World Cup tournaments. In his defence, he is hardly alone.

Just as the likes of David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney failed to bring an end to decades of English mediocrity, so Ferdinand was unable to alter the prevailing pattern of underachievement.

There were occasional moments of brilliance in an England shirt - his personal highlights include his debut against Cameroon when he became the youngest defender to wear the Three Lions, his goal against Denmark in the second round of the 2002 World Cup and his first experience as captain in 2008 - but they were fleeting vignettes rather than contributions to a more compelling narrative.

Given his stellar achievements at club level, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Ferdinand should have achieved more on the international stage.

Why didn't he? Injuries played their part - the defender appeared more susceptible than most to the pulls and strains that can truncate an international career and missed the 2010 World Cup in South Africa after suffering a knee ligament injury on the first day of the training camp - but self-inflicted problems were also apparent, most notably the eight-month ban for missing a drugs test that forced him to sit out Euro 2004.

Yet Ferdinand can also claim with some justification that a succession of England managers never really made it a priority to get the best out of him.

Glenn Hoddle saw the value of Ferdinand's footballing strengths, but the likes of Sven-Goran Eriksson, Steve McClaren and Fabio Capello were much more suspicious of anything that strayed too far from the merits of a conventional flat back four.

Ferdinand's mobility was seen as an asset whenever he was paired with the more cumbersome John Terry, but any notions of him developing into an Italian-style libero were quickly quashed. Tactical flexibility? How very un-English.

The final two years of Ferdinand's England career were a shambles not of his making, as the fall-out from John Terry's alleged abuse of Rio's brother, Anton, made it all-but-impossible for the two former team-mates to play alongside each other in the same team.

Given the choice of one or the other, Roy Hodgson plumped for Terry ahead of Euro 2012, and while the current England boss maintains there were "footballing reasons" for his decision, the whole sorry episode felt like a very public snub towards Ferdinand.

The boot was on the other foot when Hodgson crawled back to the Manchester United defender ahead of March's World Cup qualifiers with San Marino and Montenegro, and while it is hard to defend anyone for turning their back on their country, there was a degree of sympathy when Ferdinand declined his call up.

It is just a shame he then opted to jet off to Qatar to pick up a commentary fee, having previously cited an "intricate, pre-planned fitness programme" as an explanation for his non-involvement.

He departs the international scene as England's joint-14th most capped player of all time, an achievement of sorts, but hardly the garland he would have dreamed of when he made his debut more than 15 years ago. Like so many before and after, most of the hopes bestowed on him went unfulfilled.