There's people a lot worse off than me – Rio

The Manchester United defender was ruled out of the tournament in South Africa last Friday by a knee injury suffered in training, scuppering his dreams of captaining England to World Cup glory.

"It was a complete freak, an accident," said the former Leeds United centre-back of the incident with Emile Heskey which caused the injury at England's Bafokeng Sports Centre base.

"The ball came in from one of the lads to Emile, I'd gone to try and tackle him from behind – he didn't actually see me coming – we both went off balance and Emile's weight went down on my knee.

"It's no fault of his at all. It's just a freak accident that could happen at any given time and it had no connection to any previous injuries I've had."

Ferdinand was aware his World Cup tournament had ended even before he received medical confirmation.

"I knew I wasn't going to be able to play in the World Cup even before I got the scan (result) – I was just waiting to get it confirmed," he said.

"It's disappointing, but I've come to terms with it now.

"The first night was quite a pretty long night, going over what could've been and to not be able to represent your country in the World Cup.

"I was going over scenarios in my head of what could've been," he said.

"Leading out your country into a major tournament is the stuff of dreams and it's taken from under your feet.

"It was a long evening thinking about stuff like that.

"But after that I've thought to myself 'I've got to get on with it'. There's a lot more people worse off than I am.

"I'm not dying and it's not like I'll never be able to play football again.

"Hopefully I'll be able to come back, do some good rehab and I'll be fit and that's what I'm concentrating on now."