Tony Mowbray may feel hard done to but the pressure and scrutiny that he endured in the dying weeks of his Celtic reign is nothing compared to what Fabio Capello is currently going through.
Celtic and Rangers players and managers come under incredible scrutiny, a pressure that is there 365 days a year, but for sheer intensity and weight of expectation there is nothing to compare with what the England manager is going through.
Without any logic the English nation expects to win the World Cup every four years. Capello is close to becoming the man that killed that dream.
Over the next 48 hours the crescendo will only build, every utterance, comment and public movement from within the England camp will be analysed to the nth degree as a bewildered nation searches for reasons to explain why Football Won’t Be Coming Home this summer.
There are various plots and theories going on but they all revolve around one man- the £6m/year Italian who hasn’t even managed a Sven Goran-Eriksson grip of the language.
Sven, with his numerous affairs, professor-like appearance and unfailing politeness was at least known to the England support, Capello remains a stranger two years into the job with supporters for the first time wondering and questioning exactly what their manager is about.
The simmering suspicions over Capello exploded after the draw with Algeria. The hunt for reasons why the best of the best (the Premiership XI) had drawn with a team of failed Frenchman dotted around the football globe.
As soon as the final whistle blew on Friday night an army of pundits and supporters were mobilised to find out why their heroes had again failed so miserably.
Over the last three days almost every theory has been explored and explained with John Terry’s amazing media conference on Sunday giving conspiracy theorists more ammunition than they knew what to do with.
The media have been desperate for evidence of a player revolt/mutiny, after all it happened in 1990 when Bobby Robson’s side were a Chris Waddle penalty away from a final date with Argentina.
Terry didn’t disappoint. The former captain played a starring role by planting the seeds with the broadcast media before playing the martyr card to the full for the daily newspapers to deliver over breakfast.
“If it upsets him (Capello) then I’m on the verge of just saying, “You know what? So what, I’m here to win it for England,” Terry declared before going into incredible detail about the goings on since the Algeria game.
“I went to see 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.
“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 and get things off our chest.
“There was me, Lamps, Wazza, Aaron Lennon, Jamo, Crouchy, Johnno, Jamie Carragher, Stevie, probably a couple more. I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this
“We have a responsibility to ourselves, the manager and everyone else to voice that opinion and hope he takes it on board although it’s the manager who has the final decision.
“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? I’m here to win it for England’. He’s feeling the same, the players are feeling the same and if we can’t be honest with each other then there’s no point being here.
“You can’t hold grudges. When I say something, I’m doing it for my country.”
Before Terry’s quotes could be typed up the middlemen and minders surrounding the England squad were distancing themselves from the comments of their outspoken former captain.
Worse was to follow for Terry tonight when Capello was interviewed, the Italian left Terry isolated and vulnerable with his response to the Terry’s comments.
“When you speak, you have to speak privately, not with you [the media],” Capello explained referring to Terry’s comments. “This is a big mistake. This is a very big mistake.
“I know sometime some players want to speak more with you than with the other players. The mistake is you have to speak with the players, with me, with the dressing room.
“It was a big mistake, but I hope that sometime out of the big mistake will come the big performance. I hope that this will be important for the next game It’s not a revolution, it’s a mistake by one player.
“My door is always open. If people want to speak with me they can speak with me. Every time we have a meeting I ask the captain, problems?
“You want to say something? Never. Then I read yesterday that John Terry said this, I don’t understand why he doesn’t speak with me.”
Sounds like Capello thinks that Terry has made a big mistake then!
The divisions, factions and groups within the England squad may just manage to patch an uneasy truce to see them through against Slovenia on Wednesday.
The bad blood and obvious hostility within the squad and management is bound to explode into a series of kiss-and-tell style revelations when the England squad returns home trophy-less.
And then Neil Lennon can get on with the ‘straight-forward’ task of putting a winning team on the park to fill the stands at Celtic Park!
Oops, he did it again! Not content with osteracising his “best man” Wayne Bridge from the rest of the England camp , big mouth Terry sets out to take over as manager and spokesman for the entire squad. He is a first class plonker in my opinion and like Anelka before him,should be left hung out to dry for his arrogance. Nothing wrong with rectifying problems but they must be done internally. In the (almost) words of serial eejit John Motson-“How typically typically English”…or something like that?
This story has really turned into a message board debate.
As soon as something has been typed up it gets overtaken by another development.
After Capello’s repeated talk of Terry’s big mistake he contacted the Daily Mail to basically say sorry.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2010/article-1288473/JOHN-TERRY-EXCLUSIVE-Sorry-boss–defender-forced-apology-big-mistake.html
Presenting their rivals with an exclusive of this magnitude will ensure that Terry gets no sympathy from the other newspapers.
I’m sure that today’s pre-match media conference will barely touch on Slovenia as ‘Terrygate’ runs for at least a few more rounds.
Anyone else enjoying the mighty ‘engerland ‘ making a fool of themselves at yet another tournament?
This whole thing is just John Terry’s ego talking. He see’s himself as some sort of modern day King Arthur. He believes he is worth more than his actual talents. I bet he still believes he is a great pal, a great team-mate and Dad of the year.
He’s the Tim Lovejoy of football.
If England lose, Capello gets it. If England win; Terry gets praised. His PR people will be so pleased and ink on Hello contracts will be drying after the final whistle.
Would put him down like a dog.