Aston Villa's England hero Emile Heskey admits he never received an explanation from previous managers about why he was ignored.
Heskey is humble, though, and takes everything in his stride, even the fact Sven Goran Eriksson dumped him after he gave away a crucial free-kick against France in Euro 2004 as they beat England 2-1.
He was hurt by the way he was ignored until Steve McClaren brought him back, but this is the first time he has ever said so.
The Aston Villa striker said: "No, it wasn't explained. It was a bit of a strange one. It was never explained, but you take that as it is.
"If the manager doesn't have time to talk to you, he doesn't have time to talk to you. I just carried on with my game. You're going to feel harshly treated if the manager doesn't explain to you why you're not playing or why you're not in the squad, or whatever.
"But he's got so many players to choose from. Can he go to every one, I don't know?
"I gave away the free-kick. When you go on to the field with instructions, you try to go with what they said. I was told to play behind the front man, and that's what I tried to do. It went to 1-1 at the time.
"Someone's got to take the blame at the time. It could have been, should have been. But it was me.
"It could have been dealt with a bit better, but he [Eriksson] did have a lot of players to talk to, so it was difficult to say he was going to speak to 30 or 40 players individually.
"I never thought my international career was over. You just have to focus on playing well for your club. Once you've done that, you don't know what's going to happen. I don't know whether I was an easy target to leave out of the squad and not to talk to. I don't complain. You get on with your game and let that do the talking.
"I don't think I should have gone to 2006 [World Cup] at the time. They had gone through the qualifying campaign, the lads had established themselves in the qualifying campaign and they deserved to be there.
"I never gave up, though. I always wanted to get back into the squad and always knew I would. It's nice to be liked by the fans now. You have to keep plugging away. You can have so many ups and downs and it's about how you cope with them singing your name."
