Feeling the squeeze: Senior players are upset at
Fabio Capello's decision to reinstate John Terry
Fabio
Capello will gather his players at the luxury hotel in
Watford
where
the England
squad convene on Monday night and tell them that John Terry
is to be restored as captain until the end of his managerial reign
in 2012. But it will be a pointless exercise.
The damage has
already been done to team morale and nothing Capello can say seems
likely to restore the faith of his squad, some of whom are rapidly
losing their last vestiges of respect for the manager.
The overwhelming
feeling of certain players, other than incredulity, appears to be
weariness.
Weariness at the
endless saga of the captaincy, which Capello has turned into a
cheap melodrama, and weariness of Capello himself.
As
professionals, the players will turn up this week, train and play
as well as they can against Wales on Saturday. But for many, the
joy of representing England, in short supply anyway
throughout Capello’s reign, has now almost entirely
disappeared.
Publicly, some
will mouth platitudes about it being the ‘manager’s decision’ and
how they are supportive. Privately, some are aghast.
‘Why did he need
to do this now?’ said one England player last week, echoing the
thoughts of the football nation. There was simply no clamour or
need to restore Terry and the players are as bewildered as the
public.
It is little
more than a year since Terry was summoned to Wembley Stadium and
stripped of the captaincy in the wake of allegations of an affair —
denied by both parties — with the former fiancée of his one-time
friend and England team-mate, Wayne Bridge.
Perhaps more
pertinently, it is just over eight months since the humiliation
of Bloemfontein, where Terry played so badly
in the 4-1 defeat against Germany that some, including those
close to Capello, questioned whether he should ever
represent England again.
But Capello said last week: ‘I
have decided that John Terry, after one year of punishment, will be
the permanent captain.
‘He made mistakes but it is
normal for people to make mistakes. He understood the mistake and
he learns from his mistakes. He will be a very important captain
for us.’
Many footballers would question
that analysis.
One Chelsea player — not an
England international — once launched a tirade at Terry after the
entire squad had been called to a meeting at which it was made
clear that owner Roman Abramovich was furious with the bad
behaviour of his players.
The dressing-down came shortly
after it was revealed that associates of Terry had been using the
access he granted them to charge guests to visit the club’s
training ground.
When Terry later attempted to address the team,
the player in question pointed out that he had just been lectured
like a child as a result of Terry’s poor judgment and the
captain was in no position to speak.
Capello, asked last week if he
felt the England players would be happy to see
Terry restored as captain, said: ‘I think so. They respect John
Terry as a leader, absolutely.’
That may be the case for some;
for many, it manifestly is not. And either Capello does not know it
or he does not care. With 15 months to go to Euro 2012, little hope
of winning that tournament and an outside chance of being beaten to
top spot in the qualifying group by Montenegro, Capello is now
stirring up the tensions in the squad that were evident in South
Africa.
Rio Ferdinand’s principal
complaint is said to be not the captaincy decision itself, but the
manner in which it was reached. Attempting to test public opinion,
the issue was first raised in a newspaper eight days
ago.
Initially, it was claimed no
final decision had been made and the manager wanted to see how the
players reacted. There was no need to tell Ferdinand, because he
was still the captain. In fact, that is what Ferdinand was told
when he contacted Franco Baldini, Capello’s assistant, last
week.
Angry at
discovering the newspaper reports had substance, Ferdinand texted
Baldini
last Sunday, saying he knew Capello was the source of the stories
and demanding to know why he had not at least been told first. Yet
Baldini telephoned Ferdinand and assured him he was still
captain.
Less than 24 hours later, that
was thrown into doubt again. At a lunch with journalists on Monday,
Capello used the word ‘permanent’ to describe Terry’s potential
captaincy, prompting further speculation. The official line
remained that no decision had been made.
Ferdinand, assuming he was
about to be sacked but having received no explanation for that, was
bewildered.
When Capello
announced that he would seek out Ferdinand during United’s
Champions League match with Marseille, Ferdinand ensured that he
was not in his usual seat in the Old Trafford directors’ box, where
Capello and Baldini would be. Instead, Ferdinand watched from Wayne
Rooney’s executive box.
Capello has conceded that he
has bungled the announcement of the reappointment. The move was
intended to be announced as a temporary measure for the
Wales
game and was in
response to the farce of recent matches, when the armband has been
passed to almost anyone but Terry.
However, Capello’s bumbling
English means he has been bounced into making a permanent decision
now, ahead of the game.
The Italian said: ‘I said in
the press conference after the lunch on Monday that I hadn’t
decided and I wanted to speak with the players. But after the word
permanent, it changes everything.
‘I used the word permanent,
(but) I was really focused on the Welsh game and I had thought a
lot about this game and the captaincy. I decided John Terry would
be the captain for this game because after the game in
Copenhagen
against
Denmark, the way in which the armband
was moved around was upsetting for him.
‘After this game I thought
about what we really needed to do. I knew that Rio and Steven Gerrard, the
vice-captain, were injured. I said my decision would be the day
before the game because I wanted to speak with the players but the
word permanent decided everything.’
Capello appears to be under the
impression that all will be well when he meets Ferdinand to
explain. Again, he is either uninformed or not
bothered.
‘I tried to meet
him at the Marseille game,’ said Capello. ‘He preferred not to meet
us. I hope I will meet him in the future to speak with him
personally, not by phone. I spoke with Steven Gerrard and it is no
problem for him. Another thing that was important for me is that
the game against Wales will be a really tough game.
The atmosphere, everything, will be incredible, and we need a
captain with a big personality, a leader.
John, when he
played without the armband, was every time a leader on the pitch, a
leader in the dressing room. He was really good every
time.’
Undermined: Frank Lampard
Not
against Germany
in
Bloemfontein,
he wasn’t. And in talking up Terry, Capello has undermined Gerrard
and Frank Lampard, who now find their leadership credentials
trashed; Lampard because he is not trusted to captain the team in
Wales even though he is fit, and Gerrard because, unlike Ferdinand,
he is not a long-term injury worry and yet he is deemed less worthy
than Terry to wear the armband.
All this comes less than a year
since Capello said Terry would never be captain again under his
management. ‘Yes, yes, but I think one year’s punishment is
enough,’ said Capello.
His players may well conclude
that anything he says is driven by expediency rather than the need
for consistency.
Not to be forgotten is Terry’s
performance at the World Cup finals, where, at an infamous Press
conference after the dire 0-0 draw against Algeria, he announced that he was
speaking on behalf of the players and would be having words with
Capello that night about what was going wrong.
He never did because Capello
was happy to humiliate him, crushing the rebellion at source when
it became clear that Terry had misjudged the team’s
mood.
But Capello now says that he
saw leadership qualities even in Terry’s attempted coup. ‘He is a
leader but sometimes the leader can make mistakes,’ said
Capello.
The Italian
continues to labour under the impression that the
England
captaincy is a huge
issue in this country.