Here is an imagined private conversation from an England player to one of his mates back home after the Algeria debacle:
‘I tell you bruv, it’s a nightmare out here. Capello don’t allow us to have our mobile phones on, there’s no WAGS around and it’s so boring. We can’t have a laugh like we did under Sven or like we do back at our clubs. It’s like a school back in the 60’s (or so my Dad tells me) and we are under so much pressure to do what he says. All he says is ‘important, important, important’ all the time. It’s not too bad when we are out on the training pitch as that is a bit of a relief from being sat down watching tactical DVD’s for hours. It was alright in the Qualifiers because we just turned up for the match and weren’t stuck with him for days on end. That’s why we played well in most of those games cos we were more relaxed. None of us really know him even now, as he don’t speak English good enough. What’s done my head in though is that we’ve been doing 4-5-1 in training out here and playing some blinding stuff with Rooney on his own up front and Joey Cole on the left, then Capello goes and names a team two hours before kick-off and tells us to play 4-4-2 and a pressing game against a 5-man midfield and we are all shitting ourselves. I have never been so nervous before a game as I was last night because we just weren’t prepared for that. We knew it was gonna be really hard because that stupid Jabulani ball is just so hard to control when you have someone closing you down really quickly. I was scared of putting in a challenge for the ball cos I saw when Klose and Cahill were both sent off and they hardly done anything. The Refs here are crap and sending people off for nothing. No way am I getting sent off playing for England and getting hammered in the papers. I tell you now, if Capello tells us to play 4-4-2 against Slovenia, Rooney will get sent off cos he’ll just lose it. I still want to win the World Cup and I think we can if Capello lightens up a bit and listens to what we want, but he ain’t doing that at the moment.’
