Fabio Capello has confirmed John Terry has served
his punishment and is ready to be restored as England’s ‘permanent’
captain.
Manager Capello will travel to Manchester to break the
news to United defender Rio Ferdinand, following Sportsmail’s
revelation on Saturday.
Officially, Capello is still considering the position and
will wait to make a formal announcement until the eve of the match
against Wales on March 26.
He will not tell Ferdinand he
has lost the job, but does not want to continue swapping the
armband.
Convinced that Terry remains the
outstanding leader in the squad, the Italian wishes to make him
captain for the Wales game and beyond.
Capello wants to talk to the
players involved first, but spoke to the media for the first time
about the subject. ‘I think after one year of punishment that is
enough for a mistake,’ he said.
‘For this reason, I need to make
a decision about this problem. It does not need to be captain for
one game, it needs to be permanent. Before I announce a decision I
want to speak with Terry, with the players, but in the end it will
be my decision.
'Rio was captain, but my first
captain was John Terry. Rio was a good captain, so was Steven
Gerrard, but I selected Terry first until his mistake.’
That mistake, of course, was
Terry’s relationship with Wayne Bridge’s ex-partner Vanessa
Perroncel. That proved the final straw, though Capello felt his
regular appearances on the front pages had become a distraction for
the team.
Now he has had time to
reconsider.
Capello said the friendly
against Denmark was the tipping point, seeing the armband passed to
Frank Lampard in the first half, then Ashley Cole in the
second half and finally Gareth Barry. Terry has not been captain,
even temporarily, since being stripped of the role in February
2010.
Capello explained: ‘I was upset
about the armband being passed around against Denmark. Who is the
captain? Where is the armband? I do not like that. That was not a
good moment for John Terry, either.
‘I did not expect to talk about
the captaincy so much when I took the job, but I understand now it
is really important in England. I took my decision after what I saw
against Denmark, because it made me understand the value of the
captain and the armband in England.
‘I didn’t like to see it going
around the pitch. Until then, I had always had captains one, two,
three, but then it was, “I’m captain, then I’m captain”. Now I will
make it clear. I will decide.’
Capello is concerned about
alienating his senior players and wishes to speak to all sides
before revealing his decision, but his intentions were hard to
disguise, particularly when referring to Ferdinand as captain
in the past tense.
Indeed, his task in Manchester
may first be to placate the United defender, who is known to be
angry at the thought of losing the England captaincy having done
nothing wrong. Last night, friends close to Ferdinand suggested he
may decide to retire from international football, although Capello
hopes this is not the case.
Ferdinand’s weakness, however,
is that he has played for his country just four times in 11 games
since getting the job.
Capello added: ‘Rio is captain
now and I am not saying he is not a good captain. He was a
fantastic captain. He is an important player, too.
‘First of all I want to know whether he will be fit. Then
I will talk to him about what I will do with John Terry and whether
I will make a new captain. I will explain what happened in Denmark,
what I thought about that.
‘I will understand if he is not
happy, but I am the manager. I have to take decisions. I am not
concerned if people think I am indecisive.’
Asked if he was worried Terry’s
behaviour could cause a problem again, Capello seemed
unequivocal.
‘John Terry is old enough to
understand this is a really important role: Chelsea captain,
England captain and one of the most important players in the
world,’ he said.
Capello may be heading north to
treat Ferdinand to his innermost thoughts, but the United man will
be naive if he cannot read between the lines. Having lost the
United captaincy to Nemanja Vidic — again because of injury
problems — it will be a huge blow, even if Capello tries to let him
down easily by couching Terry’s return as a short-term
measure.
