Zak Whitbread

Liverpool

While growing up in Runcorn, Whitbread was a fan of Manchester United, but joined Liverpool's Centre of Excellence at the age of eight and worked his way through the academy from under-15s through under-19s before joining the reserve team in 2003. His first match in a Liverpool jersey occurred in 2003 in an exhibition match against Thailand during the club's Far East Tour. He came on to the pitch after the start of the second half, replacing Neil Mellor. Whitbread made his first team debut on 26 October 2004 in a 3–0 Carling Cup win over Millwall at The New Den, and played several games alongside Sami Hyypiä in Liverpool's 2005–06 UEFA Champions League qualification campaign. He spent much of the season on loan at Millwall.

Millwall

After signing for Millwall permanently on a three-year contract in June 2006, he featured frequently in the team's first eleven, starting 18 games for his new club in the 2006–07 season, before injuring himself in September 2006. The injury sidelined him for the rest of that season. Over the course of the 2008–09 season, Whitbread made 44 appearances, including the League One play-off final at Wembley Stadium, which Millwall lost 3–2 to Scunthorpe United.

Norwich City

Whitbread signed for Norwich City on a 2+1⁄2-year contract on January 8, 2010, making his debut in the 5–0 win over Colchester United on January 16 as a substitute for Chris Martin, but featured little thereafter due to an injury. Whitbread was…

Whitbread's first opportunity to play for the national team of his country of birth came in August 2003 when he was called up to Thomas Rongen's U.S. under-20s squad, and traveled to Spain for the L'Alcudia International Tournament, where he started three of the five matches played. He was also named on Rongen's side for the 2003 World Youth Championships in December. He started every match and scored his first goal for the U.S. to help the squad reach the quarter-finals. His play led to his inclusion with the mostly Major League Soccer based side that unsuccessfully tried to qualify the U.S. for the 2004 Summer Olympics. He could only play in one match for Glenn Myernick due to an injury he suffered during training. He played for the United States under-20s team in the 2003 FIFA World Youth Championship, and has since been promoted to the under-23 squad. On March 16, 2011, Whitbread was called into the United States senior team's camp for its friendlies against Argentina and Paraguay, but was unable to feature due to sustaining an injury while on club duty.

Although born in Houston, Texas, United States, Whitbread has spent most of his life in England and Singapore. He has lived in Runcorn for most of his life, except for the five years in Singapore when his father, Barry Whitbread, was the Singapore national football team coach during the late 1990s. While in Singapore, Whitbread attended St Stephen's School and then United World College of South East Asia.