Micah Richards column

I didn't watch the 2010 World Cup draw on Sunday but I found out pretty quickly that England have got Croatia in our group.

All my Croatian team-mate at Manchester City, Vedran Corluka, said was 'Oh, not again!'.

It won't be about revenge when we play them next but we definitely have something to prove.

As I said last week, they were a better team than us at Wembley, but what happened in the Euro 2008 qualifiers has gone now.

We have to concentrate on what is in front of us. The next qualifying campaign will be a time to start afresh and, hopefully, go out there and show what we can do.

As for the other teams in England's group, well, there are a few long trips to Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus but I'm looking forward to them.

The more places you go to in your life the better - the more you have to tell your grandchildren about!

Conditions in some of the countries we have to play may not be the best, but I like going to places and seeing what they are like for myself.

When you are away on England duty you don't get much of a chance to do any sight-seeing but you do get a chance to look around if you want to, it is not just about which hotel you are in.

I'm okay on the long-haul flights too - they are something you get used to. To be honest, I don't like taking-off though. It's scary!

But once the plane's up in the air it's all right, I just forget about it - I just stick my headphones on and listen to music to take my mind off things - and I am normally asleep by the time we land so that's not so much of a problem.

I am looking forward to trying to get to the World Cup in South Africa but, in the meantime, I will be giving 100% to my club as I always do.

City are still third in the League and that is all I am concentrating on at the moment.

We beat Reading in injury-time on Saturday thanks to a beautiful strike by Stevie Ireland - you have probably already seen it yourselves.

I had a great view of the goal as I was just behind the ball as it came across for him.

We all know his technique is excellent and, as soon as it left his foot, I knew it was going to be on target - it was just whether the keeper saved it or not - and it turned out to be unstoppable.

After the game I went home to chill out and watch Match of the Day - it's one of my favourite programmes actually - to see what the pundits had to say.

It's always nice when you watch it if you have had a good game as well, but not so nice if you have lost!

After that I went out for dinner and a little celebration with the boys.

Not too much, obviously, but we are only human and after Stevie had scored the winner in the last minute we had to celebrate a bit. We had a nice night.

We don't train on Sundays and usually I just meet up with some of the other players to relax - watch DVDs and play computer games.

The new Pro Evolution football game has just come out and we all play it - I think I can claim to be City's champ on that now!

Ishmael Miller and Daniel Sturridge are probably my main rivals, they've not bad I suppose and Javier Garrido plays a bit too. Joe Hart is trying to get in there too but he's not very good to be honest.

Micah Richards was talking to Chris Bevan

Source: BBC Sport