Capello may call John Terry’s comments a ‘big mistake’ but John Terry’s comments were for the best of England, he is an England fan like everybody else and he shouldn’t be forced to apologise to the media.
You can take away an arm-band but you can’t stop personalities shining through:
John Terry may not be captain anymore but can anyone really say there is another player in that England camp that wants to beat Slovenia and do his country proud more than John Terry? John Terry is a leader and more importantly he wants to win. Fabio Capello may be able to take away the captain’s armband from John Terry but he cannot take away his personality as the leader. In this kind of situation this is where you need strong personalities who have experience in situations such as England’s. At Chelsea Terry is the leader, the main man in the dressing room, he is entitled to voice his opinions and frustrations. The leader of the team is one that takes the criticism; he has the weight of the team on his shoulders. The skills that make a player a good leader is he takes whatever is thrown at him on the chin and leads a group of men into battle.
That is exactly what Slovenia vs England on Wednesday afternoon is, it won’t be pretty and it will be nerve-racking but would we really have it any other way? After-all we are England; as a country we don’t do things easily. The England World Cup campaign as disappointing as it has been so far has captured a nation more than we could have ever expected.
England and the Press:
John Terry has simply said exactly what every England fan and the British Media are saying back in England which is that Joe Cole has to play and the system needs to be changed with Steven Gerrard playing off Wayne Rooney. However, because John Terry is no longer Fabio Capello’s captain, he does not have the privilege to openly discuss England’s tactics in the media in front of 250 media journalists who are looking for a sentence to twist into a headline. He lost that privilege when he let down Capello and abused his power as a role model and the most important man in the dressing room. If John Terry wants to discuss England tactic’s he must do it one-on-one with Capello and as Capello has said recently ‘his door is always open’.
It says a lot when no other England footballer has come out and voiced their frustrations with the system. Frank Lampard who has an experienced head and seems to be quite a calming influence in the England camp has come out and squashed everything John Terry said making his fellow Chelsea teammate look like an outcast who is disturbing the team’s morale. John Terry has been forced to apologise for voicing his frustrations and personally I think that’s wrong, where is Wayne Rooney’s apology? Rooney made an emotional outburst and behaved like the Wayne Rooney of old, by lashing out at the fans that booed him and his team mate’s efforts on the field and used language that is unacceptable. Wayne Rooney has matured a lot as a footballer and as a person since he became a dad and a husband, but in this instant Rooney acted in a less professional way than John Terry did and he’s been let off and taken out of the lime-light. John Terry has been forced to apologise and take a back seat and that is not part of his personality but it is something he has to deal with because of his actions in recent months.
Playing in fear.... of Capello:
In the qualification group stage Fabio Capello stopped England playing with fear and to play with confidence. England’s performance at the World Cup has shown no confidence at all and almost looked scared to do anything in-case they make a bigger mistake than what Robert Green did. They are no-longer playing with fear of losing and upsetting a nation; they are playing in fear of upsetting Capello. Has the Green mistake had more of a mental impact on the other players than it has had on Robert Green himself?
Terry is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, no England fan has ever doubted that at all He has been one of England’s most consistent performers in the two games. He has done everything he could have done and it will be a big loss for England not having the partnership of Jamie Carragher and John Terry at the back against Slovenia. They are both captains for their clubs and are real leaders of men; they would have surely been the most vocal against Slovenia because that is their personality on a football pitch.
Fabio Capello has called Terry’s comments a ‘big mistake’, but at least John Terry spoke his mind, he is frustrated just like everyone watching it is. Steven Gerrard is the captain of England during this World Cup, and he is playing on the left hand-side of the midfield. Gerrard knows that his not his best position and so does everybody else, so why is Steven Gerrard not pleading to Capello saying ‘I am the leader of this team; play me in my best position and I will win you the World Cup’. We may not be hearing Steven Gerrard voice his frustration but you can certainly see it on the pitch, not once did Gerrard attack on the left, he came inside and wanted to take control and influence the game. This is again just like John Terry, this is Steven Gerrard’s personality; this is what he has done for Liverpool for years so why is Capello not putting him in his best position and letting him do it?
The proud Italian that Capello is has his ways; he could be described as ‘stubborn’ but the tactics and system used against Algeria is what worked for England in the qualification stages and nobody can deny that. What Capello seems to be forgetting is England played against minnow’s such as Estonia and Andorra in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley, I’m pretty sure that even lower league Premiership sides could easily beat these minnow nations with that kind of support. In the biggest football competition there are no such things as minnow’s, what has worked for England then may not work now, nations will raise their game against England and watch the qualification games and study what worked and work out how to stop it. New Zealand is the smallest nation there and even has two amateur players and they drew with the World Cup champions Italy and possibly could of won. Those New Zealand players will never play in a bigger game and that is exactly what attitude Algeria took against England.
Pressure as a Nation:
No-body can deny that Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney and other big names have played in more high profile games than England v Algeria, but Slovenia v England is possibly the biggest game of their lives, this is more important that the actual World Cup final. If England does not win this game, there will no World Cup final. They are not coming home as winners or runners up, they are coming home as a team that failed to get out of the easiest group in the World Cup (on paper at least). The World Cup is bigger than the Champions League final and too me, it does not look these players understand that. If players cannot raise their games when representing England in a World Cup then when can they? Playing in the UEFA Champions League players are representing their club team, where only percentage of the nation support, for England the whole nation becomes one, and the players know this far too well. Every single fan of English nationality wants them to win, it does not matter whether they support Manchester United and live in Bournemouth; it does not matter whether you are born in Liverpool and a Liverpool season ticket holder or whether you support Stockport County. Football fans in England are now all sharing the same goal.
Everybody knows these players are good players, and they want these big name players to step up and show why they are rated among the best players in the World because the World Cup is where legends are born. The whole country lived off the success of England’s victory in 1966 and shared the heartbreak of losing to Germany in the Semi-Finals in Italia 90 and if England fail to reach the next stage in 2010, the whole nation will share the frustration of this World Cup for a very long time, everybody will remember where they were when England drew with Algeria or when Robert Green fumbled the ball over his own line against USA. In future years when younger generations ask what do you remember from the World Cup 2010 in South Africa? Fans will certainly remember those matches and where they were, because football is a religion and every England football fan is proud to be English.
____________________________________________________
Too be continued, by Andrew Leese
No comments:
Post a Comment