John Terry’s mutiny quashed, but by Capello or his England team mates?

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Comment & analysis round-up

Quote of the day: “The players can say how they feel and, if it upsets him, then I’m on the verge of just saying: ‘You know what? So what?’ If we can’t be honest with each other, then there’s no point us being here… We owe it to ourselves and to everyone in the country that, if we feel there’s a problem, there’s no point in keeping it in. If I say something tonight, and I probably will and a few others will, then I’m doing the best for England. With previous managers, I’ve stood up and others have done the same. It’s not one of those things where the manager calls the shots and that’s it. People have got this picture of him where you can’t say stuff in meetings. We have a responsibility to ourselves, to the manager and everyone else to voice an opinion and hope he takes it on board… I don’t want to say it was me but I went to see [the general manager] Franco Baldini after the game and said: ‘Look, let everyone have a beer and speak to the manager. Flippin’ hell, let’s just switch off.’ We did. The manager was sitting there with a bottle of red wine and his staff. It was more relaxed from him and us. For the first time since the manager has taken over we sat there and he let us have a beer. Seven or eight players sat there talking about the game. It was good to get things off our chest and express how we felt. The discussions between the players will stay private, but it was really nice to unwind. That togetherness has been missing maybe at times…” - John Terry.

Runner-up: “It does feel like the last two years have been a waste of time. I don’t know why or how the players have arrived at this point. The training is very good so I can’t understand the way during the game that they don’t transfer their training form on to the pitch - they can’t seem to change speed. We were really, really slow and at this World Cup if you don’t run, if you don’t press and if you don’t fight, it becomes very difficult. So I’m not happy because you work hard for 20 days, you do all the preparations, you see everything during training but then, on the pitch, it is all completely different. But I can look in the mirror in the morning and say ‘you worked hard, yes; you studied everything, yes; you prepare everything, yes’. But then the football is so different. So that’s why I am unhappy because we prepare everything properly every time. But, for a manager, when you can’t see what you’ve prepared happen during the game, then it’s not easy to understand what happened to the minds of the players. I remember during the match thinking about the problem of the pressure, the fear that stops the legs, that stops the mind, that stops everything. I was a player and I know the problem. It happens sometimes in important matches, this pressure. But we still have one last chance to go forward. It is a big, big challenge. It is big pressure, big pressure for me and the team but it always is. And they know, the players know. I’m hoping now for a reaction from the players. I hope so, I’m hoping for a lot more.” - Fabio Capello.


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