City goalkeeper Robert Green today described the groin injury that wrecked his World Cup dream as “the most pain I've ever been in in my life”.But Green, giving his first interview since suffering the injury on duty for England B against Belarus at Reading eight days ago, said he was determined to put his injury hell behind him and one day force his way back into the national squad.

City goalkeeper Robert Green today described the groin injury that wrecked his World Cup dream as “the most pain I've ever been in in my life”.

But Green, giving his first interview since suffering the injury on duty for England B against Belarus at Reading eight days ago, said he was determined to put his injury hell behind him and one day force his way back into the national squad.

Speaking exclusively to CanariesWorld after declining all other interview requests, he said he would draw on the mental strength gained after recovering from previous injuries to make a speedy comeback.

After the worst week of his footballing life, the 26-year-old revealed he had almost “blacked out” from the pain of the injury.

And while the Canaries youth product admitted every mention of the World Cup was painful to bear, he said his brief taste of the build-up had made him even hungrier to get back into the international set-up.

Green underwent surgery on the ruptured muscle over the weekend and is now at home recovering on crutches.

And he said he first realised something was wrong after saving a free-kick just minutes after arriving on the pitch as a half-time substitute.

“I felt like I had trapped a nerve when I went down to scoop the ball up after the free kick,” he said.

“It seemed fairly innocuous. As I went down to pick up the ball I felt something twinge. It was a sharp pain inside my groin and it's something I've often felt and just put down to a trapped nerve and carried on. I thought it was another one of those and looked to carry on as usual. Obviously later on I realised it was slightly more serious.”

Just prior to Green taking that now infamous goal-kick, the City custodian appeared to try and take a short one, only to find there was no-one to play it too. Instead, he was forced to opt for a long clearance, which led to the horrific injury.

“I was desperate to take a short one! Before that I had thrown the ball out as I didn't want to be smacking the ball 80 yards up the pitch.

“I was keen to play a short one to get through the five-minute period to see if it would get better. But taking the kick, before I had got to within a yard of the ball I felt my leg completely rip and it felt as though someone had stabbed me inside of my groin. I almost blacked out from the pain before I kicked the ball so it was pretty horrific at the time.

“I've had a few injuries. I've had a broken back, broken ankle and broken wrist all in the past 10 years or so. But for one-off pain it was the most pain I've ever been in in my life. It's not often I'm brought close to tears, but I felt like screaming like a schoolgirl.”

And Green said the pain he felt told him almost instantly that his World Cup was over before it had even begun.

“There were not many things going through my mind at the time beyond the pain,” he said. “But I knew that I was in so much pain that it was all over. My body was telling me that something was seriously wrong.

The pain was so bad that it felt as if I had lost half of my hip bone on my leg. It's by far and away the worst I have ever felt.”